The story is deliberately written so that none of the
characters come across as sympathetic. Each is selfish and self-absorbed, looking to the
others for validation and yet doing nothing to deserve that validation. Even the old
farmer is unsympathetic, not seeming to care that Kenny has been shot. Tub should be the
sympathetic character, since he is the protagonist and picked-on by the others, but
instead he proves to relish in his faults and actually wants to be insulted. Frank is
going to destroy his own loving marriage because of an affair with a young girl, and
Kenny simply abuses Tub for fun, not caring about the consequences. In the end, the only
sympathetic figure is not a human at all:
...a large black hound with a grizzled snout ran
out and barked at them. Every time he barked he slid backwards a bit, like a cannon
recoiling. Kenny got down on all fours and snarled and barked back at him, and the dog
slunk away into the
barn...
The dog is the only
innocent figure in the story. It has no malice and no motive to hurt anyone, and it is
killed out of pity (the farmer) and to create a new, cruel joke on Tub (Kenny). However,
that joke has terrible consequences.
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