Fear In the Damp and Dark GapThe usual French feminist meaning of the "gap" transformed by Jack Bushnell from silent entrapment to a meaning that points to the "gap" as that which liberates the other and allows the generation of a Circus of Wolves entry from the other. The famous opposition masculine-self and feminine-other will be freely used with man and the circus representing the former and Kael and nature the latter. Gaps appear literally and figuratively throughout the text and with each appearance its meaning slowly, slowly alters in the manner previously stated. Jack Bushnell states in an "Author's Note" that the world of the wolf (other) is "a natural world as distinct and separate as possible from the human world (self)." The place of the Other, in other words, is separated, banished and excluded from the sphere of the self. The circus and man are selves to the extent that they confine, harness, and attempt to sustain the beauty and wonder of the other by conforming the other to the mold and manner of the self. Before we go any further, it should be noted that any appearance of anthropomorphizing the wolf is just that: appearance. It is the place of the Other that receives human essences and not Kael in and of itself. Since Kael occupies the place of the Other, the anthropomorphic transgression will appear to apply to the wolf when no actual transgression has occurred. However, Kael must come to perceive his occupation of the Other's place. Kael falls into the gap built by his oppressors "...the dampness and darkness at the bottom of the hole frightened Kael." Kael's fear is that of confinement and discovering himself as other... in the middle of the paper... and freeing himself through the void left by his oppressors. The man allows Kael to escape. He has come to know the beauty and power of the other and can no longer confine him. By gaining knowledge that reveals the nature of the gap, Kael has discovered the means to use the "gap" for the purpose of liberating the other from the oppression of the self. He has found the power of his own language and its ability to take the self away from his own world and place it in the place of the Other, Jack Bushnell has found in Kael a character who can infuse the gap with the emotional energy of the other, so ignoring its existence as a simple lacunar absence without a voice. The place of the Other radiates its own incandescent splendor, seething with the growing volume of new choral power......O...Circus of Wolves, Lothrop, Lee and Shepherd 1993