Three-Inch Teeth

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and animal death.

Zeus II is the mechanical killing bear created by LOR and symbolizes evil and murderous revenge in the text. Cates thinks of the device as “complicated, ugly, and temperamental […] But still a marvel” (214). The device is kept in the back of Cates’s truck and weighs over 800 pounds. Made of scrap metal and industrial tubing, its chief part is a scissored extendable jib arm with a pair of steel jaws at the end. Three-inch bear teeth are riveted with screws to the jaws. When high pressure is released into the tubing through the cylinders at the other end, the jib extends, and the jaws snap shut with a force of up to 2,000 PSI. The pressure is released by lowering a joystick attached to the device.

The bear is a human corruption of animal nature. Not only was the original Zeus—from which the jaws are stolen—taxidermized and mounted by humans in a museum, but another human also goes on to dismember the bear and use its body parts for foul purposes. Another bear is then blamed for the killings facilitated through Zeus II. Therefore, the device also represents the desecration of nature by people.