Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination

by Vigen Guroian

Man, the hunter, represents the irrationality of evil that always threatens to rob life of meaning. Bambi needs to understand the nature of this destructive force. In the face of danger and even death he has to learn a discipline of vigilance and self-possession in order to survive and be heir to the stag. His desire to go deep into the woods is not merely an impulse to escape. He is driven to be truly free and not a captive to the blinding and incapacitating fear that he has observed in the other deer and inhabitants of the woods. By the end of the story, Bambi has learned how to be alone, The old stag’s role and his responsibility for the lives of the deer and other animals in the woods will now devolve upon him as the stag goes off to die alone.