there are only six chapters so far, so it’s hard to say exactly what is going on here, but… from what i can tell, it seems to be pointing to a pursuit of someone (something) unfamiliar in the midst of the mundane familiar. dennis, a gentle and honest person, is susceptible to being manipulated by an alluring, mysterious person like todd. i think it’s possible that todd is representative of a change of pace that dennis simultaneously craves and fears—dennis seems to be quite dutiful, and works hard to serve a purpose, upholding the values instilled in him by his upbringing. he tends to the sheep because it’s the job that was assigned to him. nevertheless, he finds himself growing bored of the monotonous life he has acquired, and it would seem he bears some curiosity for what lies outside of it, opening his arms to a stranger even after being told not to trust anything out in the middle of nowhere… i.e. away from social pressures keeping him tied to his values. todd’s arrival throws a wrench in everything that dennis once knew, planting an uncertainty that creeps out from deep within. in a literal sense, dennis falls in love with todd and becomes intimate with him, in spite of the social norms of the time. the sheep are killed one by one as dennis grows more deviant, straying further away from the beliefs burned into him by the society he lived in.
as of now, i’m not seeing todd as inherently antagonistic… rather, i think his hostile role in this story is moreso symbolic of dennis’s fear of letting go of familiarity. to dennis, this feels destructive; even though the life he knows is boring and cumbersome, it’s comfortable to him because this how he has always lived. for someone to come into his life and break all of that in half—to have feelings like this for a man, even though that goes against everything he knows—it’s like a coyote coming out of nowhere and killing all of the sheep he had been trusted to care for. yes, it’s all entirely out of his control—it must be—or is it? i think this story is indicative of an internal struggle between conformity and honest self-fulfillment. dennis pursues his desires readily all while feeling deep down that he’s doing something wrong. even though he’s fully in control of his actions, he convinces himself that he isn’t responsible for any of it… that it wasn’t him who killed the sheep, but a coyote that ambushed him when his guard was down.
…but that’s just my two cents. i also might just be talking out of my ass we’ll see, i guess…!
there are only six chapters so far, so it’s hard to say exactly what is going on here, but… from what i can tell, it seems to be pointing to a pursuit of someone (something) unfamiliar in the midst of the mundane familiar. dennis, a gentle and honest person, is susceptible to being manipulated by an alluring, mysterious person like todd. i think it’s possible that todd is representative of a change of pace that dennis simultaneously craves and fears—dennis seems to be quite dutiful, and works hard to serve a purpose, upholding the values instilled in him by his upbringing. he tends to the sheep because it’s the job that was assigned to him. nevertheless, he finds himself growing bored of the monotonous life he has acquired, and it would seem he bears some curiosity for what lies outside of it, opening his arms to a stranger even after being told not to trust anything out in the middle of nowhere… i.e. away from social pressures keeping him tied to his values. todd’s arrival throws a wrench in everything that dennis once knew, planting an uncertainty that creeps out from deep within. in a literal sense, dennis falls in love with todd and becomes intimate with him, in spite of the social norms of the time. the sheep are killed one by one as dennis grows more deviant, straying further away from the beliefs burned into him by the society he lived in.
as of now, i’m not seeing todd as inherently antagonistic… rather, i think his hostile role in this story is moreso symbolic of dennis’s fear of letting go of familiarity. to dennis, this feels destructive; even though the life he knows is boring and cumbersome, it’s comfortable to him because this how he has always lived. for someone to come into his life and break all of that in half—to have feelings like this for a man, even though that goes against everything he knows—it’s like a coyote coming out of nowhere and killing all of the sheep he had been trusted to care for. yes, it’s all entirely out of his control—it must be—or is it? i think this story is indicative of an internal struggle between conformity and honest self-fulfillment. dennis pursues his desires readily all while feeling deep down that he’s doing something wrong. even though he’s fully in control of his actions, he convinces himself that he isn’t responsible for any of it… that it wasn’t him who killed the sheep, but a coyote that ambushed him when his guard was down.
…but that’s just my two cents. i also might just be talking out of my ass we’ll see, i guess…!