Importance of Animals

For Jacob (and for Saint Blaise, the Holy Helper perhaps closest to him in temperament), animals represent comfort and opportunities for compassion. For Jacob, they also represent his introductions to the experience, meaning, and qualities of death. The narrative portrays him as identifying powerfully with animals, both literally (as in his identification with the agonized crying out of the goat being led to slaughter) and metaphorically (as in the narrative's comparisons between Jacob and various insects, including bees and crickets.