Chapter 3 Cont.

One of the most horrific and macabre scenes in the book takes place in Chapter 3 of the novel. Fidelis receives an assignment to butcher a prize-winning pig who has been pampered all her life and is now being retired, so to speak. He handles it with perfect calm, just like any other project that he has; he is a master butcher after all. As he soon discovers, however, this time will be very different. The sow shows an almost human fear and intellect as she skillfully fights for her life, leaving Fidelis gravely injured with a large wound in his leg.

Surprisingly, most of all to him, he feels a deep sorrow for her, almost as if he feels some connection with her. He begins to sob after he kills her, and immediately becomes ashamed and angry at his breakdown. After all, "He had killed men...What sort of man was he to weep, now, for a pig?" (Erdrich 38). Clearly, this is a man who, perhaps paradoxically, values a life, and not just a human life. He feels because he has become disengaged from the context of war, and for a brief time he has been tirelessly chasing a (somewhat) helpless animal fighting for her life; he has taken on the role of the very persistent murderer essentially, and he realizes it is exhausting to be cruel to a creature fighting for her life. This is just one of the ways that I have seen Fidelis' character grow from the beginning of the book, and he will continue to experience new opportunities for growth as the book progresses.