The Bad Lion -- Toni Bentley

We are all creatures of habit. It is in our blood to interfere with acts of nature when we see fit. Yet, there are moments in time when interfering with acts of nature compromise our moral identities. Nonetheless, there is an equal amount of moments in time when leaving nature be goes against every fiber in our body. Toni Bentley’s “The Bad Lion” proves to be an allegory for this human tendency. The story, which follows a group of tourists essentially intruding on the natural habitat of the African Lions – whom are residing within the Sabi Sands Game Reserve – focuses on the human perspective of acts in nature for which we lack understanding. While on a safari adventure, the tourists come face-to-face with Satan, a rogue lion, whose aspirations for dominance deviate from the typical lion behavior, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake as he works to impose his dominance on the other lions inhabiting the game reserve. It is after watching Satan attack a female lion firsthand that we begin to see the aforementioned human tendency unravelling. Clueless as to why the lion has entered this state of rampage, the tourists question their bystanding roles in the act and devise ways of – in their minds – restoring order.  This is what Toni Bentley intended on revealing to the reader, the aspiration of the tourists to “make things right.” Perhaps what we don’t realize is that, much like Satan, we feel the need for dominance and control. Through selective imagery in which the reader – which could be anyone who picked up the book – was exposed to a situation of out the ordinary, Bentley was able to bring to light our longing for order and structure both personally and in a general sense. Having received praise for her work from The New York Times and Harvard University, among other publishers and institutions, Bentley is well versed in the writing community. Her highly acclaimed book, The Surrender, An Erotic Memoir, seemingly set the stage for this essay as it was focused on the struggle for dominance, much like Satan’s.

 

Lions on the Prowl

African Lions in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve -- thewildsource.com