How To Talk To A Hunter

3 Pages 698 Words

Gender Diversity
In her short story “How to Talk to a Hunter” Pam Houston puts an unconventional touch to the way she explains gender differences in a relationship. Her story is told in a consistent but unusual method with nameless characters and diversified insight on the narrator’s thoughts. Houston’s story relates to a vast majority of her readers. Her statements are unspecified, almost as if she is speaking about both genders as a whole. She expresses different thoughts about the attitudes of both men and women in relationships and gives a dose of the female thought process.
The narrator in this story seems to be particularly paranoid and insecure. For example, when the hunter is talking about vacationing to Hawaii and Alaska she realizes it is “…impossible to tell if she was included in his plans.” She can’t figure out whether the hunter is talking about herself or another woman. I detected another hint of insecurity when the narrator notices the hunter talks about his friend and “..Manages to say eight things without a gender determining pronoun.” The narrator mentions things like this not only to show the hunter’s infidelity but also to show tension in the relationship.
I read this short story as an allegorical thought, the entire piece of literature came from a random assortment of thoughts that the author eventually modified into a story. What makes this story unique is not just the manner in which the literature is presented, but also the gaps left for the reader to formulate an explanation. Some people might read this story as simply a relationship between two lovers; however, I see it as a stereotypical assessment of men and women in relationships. Houston does not specify names except for Janie Coyote, nor does she notify the readers when and where the story takes place. She gives no background on any of the characters, which makes it hard to follow on the first read through. I think ...