“Hunters in the Snow” explores the interplay between cruelty and shame in human interactions. At the outset, the clearest source of cruelty in the story is Kenny, who belittles and bullies Tub, seeing him as an easy target due to his overweight physique. Indeed, when Kenny enters the story, he nearly runs Tub over with his truck. When Kenny laughs and likens Tub to “a beach ball with a hat on,” we understand his action to be intentionally cruel rather than merely reckless. This pattern of cruelty continues, even taking the form of inaction, such as when Kenny and Frank refrain from helping Tub through a fence. What is clear is that such cruelty activates and perhaps deepens the shame Tub already feels. Kenny and Frank’s teasing elicits a presumably pre-planned answer from Tub: “It’s my glands.” Kenny also causes Frank shame, bringing up the topic of the teenage babysitter with whom Frank is infatuated, despite Frank’s desire to keep his problematic desire private.

As the story progresses, the relationship between cruelty and shame is shown to run the other way as well. After Tub shoots Kenny in an act of self-defense, the balance of power shifts. Kenny becomes dependent on Tub and Frank, who bond and form a kind of alliance in the absence of Kenny’s harsh oversight. As the rest of the story unfolds, Tub’s and Frank’s feelings of shame give rise to a subtle countervailing cruelty towards Kenny. As Kenny lies in the truck bed, suffering from the gunshot wound and the terrible chill, Tub and Frank repeatedly get distracted from their goal of rushing Kenny to the hospital. They stop multiple times, including for a meal, and they even remove Kenny’s blankets to cover themselves. Contained in this negligence is a cruelty, arguably a revenge against Kenny for the derision and shame he caused them.

The emotional core of the story is the complex set of friendships among Kenny, Frank, and Tub. The two halves of the story exhibit two essential forms of friendship. The first form is coercive and based on a hierarchy of power. At the start of the story, Kenny asserts and maintains dominance over both Tub and Frank. He bullies and demeans both men in different ways, chiding Tub for his weight and embarrassing Frank about his infatuation with a younger woman. It is significant that Kenny establishes the tone of the interactions, causing Frank to fall into line and either silently permit his cruel behavior or even join in on the teasing of Tub. One could argue that this model of friendship is not friendship at all, but they are spending time together wilfully, even as they hurt one another.

The second model of friendship emerges in the second half of the story, after Tub has shot Kenny. Without Kenny’s dominant presence, Frank and Tub establish a new rapport between them, one defined by authenticity and vulnerability. The two men share their personal struggles in honest terms, and each is met with a show of support and care from the other. It is notable that under Kenny’s paradigm Tub feels compelled to lie about his weight issues, citing his glands, whereas with Frank, he can divulge his secret eating habits and thus alleviate some of his shame.

The story unfolds against the backdrop of a cold winter day in the countryside outside Spokane, Washington. In this setting, the overwhelming power of nature over humanity becomes clear. The ubiquitous blankets of snow prevent the men from achieving their goal of tracking and killing...