First-Person Fiction

This story stars an unreliable, unkempt, and quite honestly, stupid man left trapped and barren as his life crumbles. The narrator is first depicted as a rather aloof man with strict plans to “stiff” his landlord on rent and leave town. He begins by describing how some hunters from out of town have been recently active on his property. We are also given information that tells us that both his wife and friend have left him alone to his own devices as he has lost his source of income due to blatant incompetence on his part.

This brings us to our first real conflict of the story. As the narrator returns home he is visited by two hunters, presumably the ones who have been active on the property, as they hold up a dead buck. They are both heavier set female characters dressed in masculinizing clothing. The narrator seems to fixate on their weight, detailing it every chance he gets. He goes as far as to compare them to his wife, who is described as stick thin and child-like. His fixation on their weight borders on fetishism. He says, “I’ve often though that fat women might be better.” I think this over sexualization and negativity regarding the female gender is what enabled the two women to ultimately seduce him to steal his money and train tickets.
As the story progresses you see the women become more and more suspicious in their actions. Acting in an off putting manner, knowing a surplus of information about the narrator, avoiding questions, and eventually offering to “cuddle” and “clean” for him. During all this the narrator is none the wiser as he naively follows these two sweet, incapable women. In the end, he becomes like the deer they killed. He was left laying limply outside with snow melting inside him. He sits empty and alone in his home after they had taken what they wanted from him. He was their pray and they were, in fact, hunters.

The narrator starts by telling us that he is renting out a small home in the woods where a bunch of hunters kill deer all day long. He mentions to us a little about what he is going through at this moment. His wife has left him for another man and sold their car before leaving. He is explaining to us that he is very alone in this small house and wants to leave for Florida. A detail in the story that we later find out is important is that he keeps his ticket to Florida in his wallet. He suddenly gets a knock on the door, from lady hunters. He had a very skinny wife but weirdly talks about how fat these two hunters are. He seems to like the fat more and more as the time they spend together goes on. He states that it makesthe home feel full and makes him feel good. 

I think that the narrator felt sad and depressed during his time alone in his home. But his emotions change throughout the story because when the hunters showed up he felt good and happy they filled the empty space. This narrator is telling us that he feels uncomfortable with empty space and this comes with being sad or depressed. Like the expression people use when they are sad “I feel empty inside”. This narrator has something missing in his life and I don’t think he knows what that thing is. When the women were there that space was filled. I think this is why he spent so much time talking about them being so fat. But I still don’t think the women are the piece that he needs to fill this void. Honestly, I would say he never finds it. We find out that his wife left him due to him spending his money on his dream. He lost a job, his wife, the nice ladies in his home, and lastly in the end his one last escape from his bad world, his tickets. 

It is really weird how Bonnie takes the narrator to the backroom for a bit and Phyllis supposedly tightens up his home. I think that Bonnie was a distraction for Phyllis to take his money and his tickets from his wallet. The breaking of the cup was a way for her to hide the fact she was digging in his wallet and not actually doing the dishes. Then as soon as they are done in the backroom Phyllis and Bonnie are ready to leave even after he asks them to stay for dinner. This makes this assumption seem true. Then once they leave he decides to get ready to hit the road to Florida and looks for his wallet to only find his money and tickets gone. I assume that these women had planned to rob him from the beginning. That they didn’t have husbands across the line because when asked that question they seemed worried to answer. 

    The author of this short story steps us into the shoes of the main character, Lester Snow, through the use of dialogue and by providing descriptive insights from secondary characters. Whereas in other writers’ works, the main character often describes themselves through their thoughts or actions, Richard Ford utilizes the situations and circumstances his characters are placed in to offer readers and insight into who they are as a person. In “Winterkill,” this is no exception. One detail in particular that stood out to me was that Leslie’s character and moral compass are more prominently defined in the first few pages of this story, and then later on his appearance is commented on by Nola Foster. At the beginning, Leslie mentions that “Trouble comes cheap and leaves expensive, is a way of thinking about that” (pg. 160) in regard to Nola and her appearance. This line in particular leads readers to believe that Leslie is the kind of person who cares more about himself than others, and has a very narrow perspective on the way the world works. This is supported by the fact that he was recently put out of work and has been living through harsh times lately as well. This story in general has a theme of loss and disconnection, whether in family, friendships, or relationships. The author uses this theme throughout the story, and it is evident that the lack of connection has left the main character ill-equipped to relate to his family members and even his friends. The detached manner of Leslie’s narration gives readers a much better understanding of the kind of person he is, without any of the physically descriptive factors that are provided later on in the story. I think the authors’ style of writing and the type of characters he chooses as narrators for each story are very relatable and easy to understand, regardless of whether we have personally experienced a situation similar to theirs.

    The details about Leslie Snow we learn throughout the story tend not to be mentioned directly by the narrator himself but by the other characters in his presence. This technique employed by the author allows us to gain a better understand of what Leslie is like by living through his character and getting feedback from the secondary characters as the story unfolds. Too often main characters are forced to tell their own backstory or monologues are used to excess, so Richard Ford employs this strategy in a way that gives us a better picture of who Leslie is without detracting from his narration, and the result is a well-flowing narrative with few pauses and all the details we would want to know about the story’s narrator. One line that was repeated a couple times in this story states, “It was a peculiar look she gave me, a look that seemed to ask something of me, but I did not know what it was and couldn’t answer” (pg. 169). Leslie describes the looks that Nola gives him, but cannot comprehend what any of them mean and does not understand how to interpret them. This depicts the detachment that he has from society and the loss of connection with others that Leslie is experiencing, and this draws us into a fuller picture of his character as a result. All of us have experienced something similar to this in our lifetime, and this makes Leslie Snow into a narrator that we can understand even better. Overall, Richard Fords’ depiction of connections and the lack thereof between characters in this story and many of the other stories we have read provides a unique insight into why having relationships with others is important, and how we as human beings need community to survive in the world.

Masculinity is a recurring theme in Richard Ford’s stories, unsurprising as they are all told by male narrators. His stories also involve the absence, passivity, or transience of a woman as well as affairs by either a female character, the male character, or both. This is clear in “Winterkill” as well as in this one, but I will discuss only “Going To The Dogs” below:

Richard Ford and his wife Kristina Hensley with their dogs

The narrator is a man who, in this story, attempts to recapture or remake his idea of masculinity. One of the supposedly masculine traits is to be invulnerable. This is immediately apparent in the opening paragraph:

“My wife had just gone out West with a groom from the local dog track, and I was waiting around the house for things to clear up, thinking about catching the train to Florida to change my luck. I already had my ticket in my wallet.”

His wife had left him for another man, but there is no emotional vulnerability from the narrator. He immediately moves on to tell us he’s thinking of going to Florida to make some money, as if he is already past his wife’s infidelity and abandonment. Men cannot show weakness for it is against the typical perspective of manhood.

It is interesting, then, to note that the narrator takes on perceived “feminine” traits in that he wears a bathrobe and bakes coffee cake in the morning. And while his home is a pigsty (stereotypical bachelor pad), it is Phyllis who cleans his home “so that when I cleared out I wouldn’t have to do that myself.” (108) Again, this adds to the standard norm of masculinity: men don’t do the housework.

Furthermore, the narrator’s deliberate intention to remain invulnerable is not solely in the beginning. On page 102, he says, “I didn’t like Phyllis nearly as well as Bon…I didn’t like that Phyllis knew so much, even if the particulars were not right on the money.” He has to keep emotionally distant; even we, the readers, never know his real name or anything substantial about him. There always remains a distance between us and the narrator.

Another trait believed to be masculine is that of sexual potency; a trait of a real man is his ability to satisfy a woman. The narrator lost this when his wife left him; typical thinking in these cases from the one who was cheated on is that they could not sexually satisfy their partner. When Bonnie flirts with him and compliments his body before they sleep together he says,

“I liked that. It made me feel good. It made me feel reckless, as if I had killed a deer myself and had a lot of ideas to show to the world.” (107)

This thinking also reveals the narrator’s view on the idea of manhood—men must hunt and be successful—and of the traits he didn’t have before the story (he is not a hunter nor is he accomplished; his advertising ideas failed, and he avoids confrontation with the male hunters). And yet despite his apparent sexual success, neither Bonnie nor Phyllis stays the night with him. Whatever elated feelings he had about his masculinity dissipate, particularly when he finds that Phyllis stole his train ticket to Florida (certainly Bonnie knew about this).

In fact, the characters with masculine traits are Bonnie and Phyllis: successful hunters, passive attitude towards sex and infidelity (at least Bonnie) and are transient (they don’t stay longer than they want to). And yet they are made the villains of the story because they take away the narrator’s attempt to achieve his masculinity.

I’ve also noticed in his stories that Ford writes about loss, isolation, and separation; many of his characters experience all three. I’m certain Ford’s own upbringing contributed to his writing—he lost his father at age sixteen, his mother to cancer, and his best friend Raymond Carver. And his writing doesn’t necessarily reflect his own views; affairs are a common element in his stories, but Ford has been happily married to his wife for fifty-three years. How much of a writer’s life should go into their writing? At what point should they deviate from what they know?

In “Going to the Dogs,” the narrator’s perspective on Phyllis and Bonnie is heavily influenced by the past experiences he had with his own wife.  As the narrator states, his own wife “is a slender, petite woman who bought all her clothes in the children’s section of the department store…. But she didn’t have much of a presence in the house; there just wasn’t enough of her to occupy the space.” (Ford 102) This expert serves to shows the discontentment the narrator has in his own married life, as well as to show a contrast between his wife and Phyllis and Bonnie.  He established early on he thinks these women are large, which is the exact opposite of his wife. This contrast makes him far more receptive to the women than he might usually be, for the simple fact they’re not like his wife.  He seems enthralled by these women, saying, “these women seemed to fill everything and to make it seem like thanksgiving was already here, being that big never seemed to have a good side before but now it did.” (102) This excerpt shows he believes these women fit the standard his wife did not. However, the most important aspect of thisquotationt is he acknowledges he did not always see the benefit in bigger people. He was only allowed to come to this conclusion because they represent the polar opposite of his wife, with whom he is currently angry.

The author even establishes that the narrator is even annoyed by Phyllis at times. Yet despite this annoyance, he says” I felt like I could grow to like Phyllis better in a matter of time.” (Ford 107) This statement is presumably incorrect as he could not even grow to respect his own wife in the time they were married. This is not respect for Phyllis but the narrator finding novelty in something so unlike his own wife. If he had respected these women, he would have not lied about his name or the fact he going to move soon.

Overall, the narrator’s opinions of Phyllis and Bonnie are not based on their characters but rather on the fact their body type differs from his own wife. Because of this difference, they represent a chance for him to escape the current reality he is in with his wife.