Literary Analysis Essay on the Hunters in the Snow

Introduction

The short story is about three main protagonists who decide to go hunting, and then the trip of hunting ends up changing their entire lives. The three characters, through their selfish and childish nature they decide to behave in a manner that is deceiving to all other people without taking heed to what such kind of behavior would result in. The first of all fake the kind of lifestyle that they have that leads to everyone around them and leads to situations around them that they could never be in the position to make a difference and things would never be the same again for them. The three protagonists have diverse characteristics that they use as a means of deception to achieve the intended outcomes. There are symbolism and various themes identified from the short story, as will be discussed in this paper (Wolf, 1985).

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Themes

The central theme of the story is hunting. There is some behavior that the protagonist mainly Kenny portrays and seems like he is the hunter. There are those who are hunters, and there are those who are hunted. The character that is seen as the hunter would be Kenny this is because he portrays the most active traits, cunning, intelligent and can control the other members of his group in the manner that pleases him. The tub can be described as the prey of the hunted because of the way that he is treated. The character trait of Tub is less cunning, less fit, and very irritable. It, therefore, gets interesting to make him suffer every time because Kenny has a sadist nature in him. The hunter is always the one who makes the rules as we see Kenny doing and he is also the one who does the talking when it is necessary like he did. The rule by Kenny of keeping his friends through ridicule and then having no compassion makes his friends also have the same kind of treatment, and this is how they live. These kinds of rules for making other people suffer are the most inhumane rules revealed in the story (Wolf, 1985).

The theme of deception- the character Kenny, who is also the alpha-male of the group seen to have the characteristics of a bully, reveals this character to his friends. The act of covering up the flaws by pointing out to his friends' and causing some misery situations for them making them look like laughing stock to other people. When Tub was left alone in the falling snow alone as Kenny and Frank took a walk ahead of him and left Tub alone. He was deceived having the food and being left alone in a quiet place and having no one to accompany them, the cold is something that a person would not imagine. It is better to be in the company of the rest because it even gets hard to realize that one is hungry. The two friends come along and almost ran over their friend all in the name of jokes. It would be frustrating to have this kind of friend because they do whatever they can to make a person thin lowly about themselves. They made fun of the way Tub looked and also the fact that they almost ran over him. This kind of behavior, even influential to the people around them makes them look like bad people. They are considering that they were all friendly, and one of them was treated like a lesser being.

The theme of disastrous situations is also revealed. There are many things that the three friends have not been telling each other, and therefore, some things are not known. The characters think about themselves more, and they cannot go beyond their thinking about themselves. An example is an instance where Tub is told by Frank that he is not the only one with problems and that he is a grown-up who should be able to take care of himself in any circumstances. As friends, people are always seen to look out for each other and according to the way that they communicate with each other. This leads to Tub asking Frank is if he has a problem and we see that the friends who call themselves friends have things that they do not share. Frank, on being asked whether he had anything bothering him, said that it was nothing to worry about and that he should not bother himself. From the reaction shows that Frank had something that had got to him, yet he did not want to share it. The frequent cruel jokes that Kenny makes towards Tub do not make him happy. When Kenny kills the dog makes Tub think that the jokes he makes to seem real. The stress that results from the frequent jokes on Tub makes him kill Kenny in the long run. It took long for Kenny to realize, but this time, the result was contrary to the expected because Kenny lost his life due to cruelty to his friend Tub (Wolf, 1985).

Symbolism

The truck can be the first symbol of the change in the relationship between the three friends. The truck is what the three used to go to another place where the relationship between the three friends changes making things never to be the same among them. The friends get to discover things that they did not know about each of them and also that there were things which they hid from each other and through the hunt they discover this. It is like they had gone hunting to see the behavior or what they did not know about them. None among the three of them would have thought of Tub as a person who would get anger and end- up shooting Kenny the hunter and the person who was always controlling the other members in their group. The jokes went far too much, leading to Tub's anger and also Frank telling him about the relationship issue that was disturbing him (Wolf, 1985).

The snow- snow hinders a lot of things from happening even hunting gets hard during the snowy seasons. Therefore the snow hindered a lot of things and would be a representation of hindrances of the relationship of the three friends. There could be factors that they were not aware of like Kenny's behavior that stopped them from being real friends. The jokes went far too much, and the rules were also not bearable. Therefore one would conclude that hunting in the snow was not something bearable and was a foreshadow of the difficulty that awaited them.

Tub's Over-eating behavior- it would have been thought that the best thing that he did was only eating. It was like his secret that he had a plan to do this as a result of the stress that he suffered from all the jokes by Kenny. Seeing Tub as a weakly person who could not make a difference for himself or speak for himself made Kenny feel so superior because Tub could do nothing to change this. It was under-estimation because Tub turned out to be another being. He said that overeating was not for nothing. He shot Kenny himself because he had already enough of the jokes.

Killing the dog- as Kenny made a joke regarding Tub and then killed the dog, this turned out to be an eye-opener to Tub. He realized after all this time that all these jokes were going out of hand and he had already had enough. It was time to end the relationship that was seen to be binding based on the ridicule Kenny made. Tub, despite being considered as the least intelligent, was able to end the life of the hunter who thought that all things could work out the way that it pleased him and proved that he was wrong. Things would never be the same again for Tub and Frank.

It is always good to treat people with respect they deserve of matter the kind of personality that they have. Respect should always be upheld, especially in friendship.

Works Cited

Wolf T. Hunters in the Snow. 1981. Accessed from https://b-ok.cc/s/?q=Hunter%27s+in+the+Snow