The Last Hung: Joops Mid-life Crisis :: essays research papers

The Last Hung Joops Mid-Life Crisis     In Horst Sterns The Last Hunt, a man named Joop is portray as aprofessional worker in a very well known bank. Outside of being a banker, Joopenjoys to hunt wild animals. This has been a hobby of his since he was ayoung boy. Throughout the story many questions are raised about Joops truefeelings about his job, hunting, and his life. In the beginning of the story, awomen walks in on Joop while he is staring at a picture on a wall in his office.The women is very embarrassed because she believes he is staring at the nuditypart of the picture. This indeed is not true as the reader further examines thereason behind the picture. By looking at the picture, Joop realizes that he is issue through a mid-life crises, which can only be resolved by exorcisingmemories of his wife, the bear, and the goddess of hunting, Diana.     The solution to the first part of his mid-life crisis is to get rid ofthe memories of Mari that still resided deep at heart his mind. He does this byvisiting the house where the majority of these memories take place. Whiletouring through the house he remembers all the ways that Mari resembled thegoddess of Diana. During the period that Joop was married to Mari, sheportrayed herself in a few ways as being Diana. She did this by giving thename of "Worshipping Diana to the act of Joop flattering her.Her skin was white except for unmatched violet-colored bruise just under herright collarbone it never disappeared entirely during the hunting season andcame from the kick of her hefty weapons. It pleased her that he liked to kissthis particular spot. She called it "Worshipping Diana" (Stern 112).By doing this, Mari therefore implies that she believes she is thegoddess of hunting. Not only does Mari imply that she is similar to the goddessDiana, but Joop also feels very upset about her believing that she is a goddessand he is just one of her pawns. " Her solemn ity always frightened him, sinceit seemed to suggest that his main role in her eyes was as high priest of herown frenzy" (Stern 112). In this case the high priest would be the hunter Joop,and he would be serving Mari in her own fantasies.     Joops departure from the house was very bustling because he wanted to getthe memories of Mari behind him.Joop climbed wearily into the car and told his chauffeur to drive .