The text primarily illustrates how Diana feels while she's hunting. It captures the exhilaration and primal connection she experiences as she follows the urge to hunt. The description of her body "thrum[ming] with rapture" and the joy she imparts to the animals around her emphasizes her passionate and instinctive nature as a hunter. While she does not express a preference for hunting alone or attempts to avoid it, the passage clearly conveys her enthusiasm and the powerful draw she feels toward the act of hunting itself.
"All right, then," she says, nodding smartly. "It's time to hunt."
The boar pops twenty feet straight up, like a cork in water. "Yes! Adventure!"
Diana picks up her bow and sets off walking. She doesn't know the quarry, she doesn't know what she'll do when she finds it. She only knows the urge to hunt, ancient and irresistible. Moving with that urge makes her body thrum with rapture.
She breaks into a run. The animals—those that can keep up—run with her for a while, then break away and return to their own lives, feeling the same joy of being they've always felt, but more deeply than before. Diana doesn't say good-bye to them, nor do they feel any loss as she leaves.
From Martha Beck, Diana, Herself: An Allegory of Awakening. Copyright 2016 by Martha Beck
The previous text suggested that Diana was an eager hunter. How does this novel build on or challenge that idea?
it illustrates how diana feels while she's hunting.
it shows ways Diana tried to avoid hunting.
it suggest that Diana preferred hunting alone
1 answer