Hunters in the Snow

Hunters in the Snow by Tobias Wolff was definitely a bit of an odd story that had some very interesting plot twists. The author builds each of the characters on their "flaws" only to later reveal a sort of innocence within each of these flaws. The characterization of the three friends portrays them as close but distant, and let's the reader assume that they always behave the way that they currently are behaving. I think that the problem with this assumption is that there was then no account on the readers behalf for the emotional stability, or lack thereof, in the current status of the characters. This was what led to the almost ridiculous reaction to the common use of language abuse and revelation from friend to friend on what each had been ultimately lying about for a length of time. These might seem normal to us, but in reality their ability to hide these failures from their friends reveals a deeper meaning in the way that each in response to these revelations fails to respond in a truly caring way but instead feeds the behavior and poor decision making by fueling the issues at hand. This was evident in the way that Tub dealt with the open speaking about divorce and encouragement of his friend. I think that Tub might have only been doing this with the selfish intention of softening up his friend to tell him the news of his fake sickness. This then allows Frank to compensate his friend accordingly and feeding his personal struggle through the food and encouragement to, "Weigh in, Tub,"(232).