Hunters In The Snow

"'You fat moron,' Frank said.  'You aren't good for diddly.'" - Tobias Wolff.

For this blog, I am going to formally answer a question included in the text book.  The question is this:

Which of the three principal characters do you find most sympathetic?  The least sympathetic?  Discuss your answers.  do the characters' names help us to form our impression of them?

The character I find most sympathetic is without a doubt, Tub.  He is always being picked on as the quote I used above shows.  Kenny and Frank always seem to be ganging up on him and making fun of him.  For example, they almost ran over him with the truck at the very beginning of the story.  When Tub tells them they could have killed him they sort of just laughted and said they were kidding around, not taking the situation very seriously.  They also just leave him by himself in the snow as they are walking back to the truck.  No wonder he is eating himself to death.  His feelings are always low because his friends treat him porely and the only way to make himself feel better is by eating.  The character I find the least sympathetic is Kenny.  He is the one who was mostly instigating the teasing.  He even went as far as saying he hated Tub and pretending he was going to shoot him.  I hate to say it, but it's almost like he got what he deserved when Tub reacted by shooting him in the gut.  Obviously he doesn't deserve to die but he was just asking for Tub to shoot him.  As for the names of the characters, I believe Tub's name is the most obvious for creating an impression in my mind.  The name Tub just makes me think of a short, fat man.  This description is very similar to the one given in the book.  As for the other two, my impression from their names are probably a bit of a long shot.  The name Frank seems like an older, wiser name.  Frank can therefore be identified as the one who is more grown up and who has a dramatic change of heart in this short story.  The name Kenny makes me think of a playful person.  I also think of a jokester.  This also is similar to the description given in the book.