Hunters in the Snow

“Hunters in the Snow” is narrated from a third-person limited perspective in the past tense. The first sentence, “Tub had been waiting for an hour in the falling snow” (20), establishes Tub as the main point of view in the story. The reader knows only what Tub knows; for example, the reader finds out about Frank’s affair, the farmer’s request that Kenny shoot the dog, and that no ambulances are available only when Tub is told about it. However, the narrator tells the reader nothing about Tub’s inner life. The reader has no insight into the thoughts or feelings of the characters and can only form an opinion on the characters based on their actions, inactions, and dialogue.

Irony is a literary device than can show the inconsistencies between what is said and what is done by the characters, or the inconsistencies between what the reader expects the characters to do and say and what they actually do and say. In “Hunters in the Snow,” the hunting trip is ironic because a hunter gets shot rather than a deer.