Thursday, February 28, 2013

Hunters in the Snow- Surprising Plot Elements

In Tobias Wolff's short story, Hunters in the Snow, there is a big contrast between the characters at the beginning and end of the story. Beginning the story, there are three friends- Tub, Frank, and Kenny- who are going on a hunting trip. It is easily perceived by the readers that Tub is bullied by his friends. Many of their belittling comments hurt Tub, and he builds up anger inside because of it. When Kenny makes fun of tub and his failure of a diet, Frank goes along with it saying, "'Tub, you haven't seen your own balls in ten years'". Upset with the way he is being treated, Tub's anger only augments until he shoots Kenny. All jokes are off at this point, and this is where the plot change takes place. Tub goes from being bullied and submissive, to standing up for himself. Tub becomes the character who calls the shots- the one Frank follows around. And Kenny become the vulnerable one who has no voice of his own. The plot shift was not something I expected from this story, but it did make for an interesting plot and showed how the friendship was not as close as readers might have suspected at first.

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