The Hunter’s Wife

By Anthony Doerr

1. Context

Background of the Author

Anthony Doerr, also known as Tony Doerr, was born October 27,

1973, in Cleveland, Ohio. In high school, he developed an interest in

writing, and by the time he was in his mid-twenties, Doerr was submitting

his work to magazines for publication. Although his mother was a high

school science teacher who encouraged family interest in science, Doerr,

who writes a lot about science and the environment, did not pursue formal

education in science. He obtained a B.A. in history at Bowdoin College in

1995 and an M.F.A. in writing at Bowling Green State University in 1999.

After that, he taught at various institutions, including the University of

Wisconsin at Madison, Boise State University, and Princeton University.

In 2004, Doerr’s first novel, About Grace, appeared. This work tells the

story of a man who is haunted by dreams that come true. When he dreams

that he is unable to save his infant daughter, Grace, from drowning, he

abandons his wife and daughter without offering an explanation. He

harbors the hope that doing so will avert the fulfillment of this apparent
 prophecy. Doerr’s Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the

Biggest Funeral in the History of the World was expected to appear in

2007.

Background of the Text

The Hunter’s Wife is a part of Anthony Doerr’s fine first collection

of stories – “The Shell Collector”. But while the perspectives of the

characters in ''The Shell Collector'' range widely, from a lonely New

England teenager to a Liberian refugee in Oregon, two themes unite the

book's storytelling: hunting and being hunted, holding on and letting go.

2. Plot Summary

The story started with Dumas, a person who guides hunters,

traveling to Chicago to meet his wife whom he had not seen for 20 years.

He is going see his wife perform her magic for the first time.

At the course of the story, a series of flashbacks encapsulates the

past of Dumas and his wife and what brought them to where they are right

now.

Dumas, also known as the hunter, met Mary Roberts, his wife at the

winter of 1972 in a magic show. During that time, Mary is the assistant of
Vespucci, a magician. Dumas fell in love with her beauty and kept

following her to her shows to persuade her to date him, and after several

tries, she then said yes to the eager man.

He brought her to her cabin, 40 miles away from the city, and deep

in the snowy capes. During their life together at the cabin, they both

discovered things about themselves. Dumas realizing that life with her is

different from what he expected, and Mary uncovering her magic.

After one winter, Dumas asked Mary for her hand in marriage, and

the tumultuous ride of their relationship started. Mary learned more about

her powers, while Dumas didn’t believe her. Dumas longs for springtime

and summer, while Mary longs for winter. Their worlds are complete

opposite, and this has caused a rift in their marriage.

Spring, summer, and autumn came and went. And the winter that

came was the worst for them. They were battling against nature. During

this time, they came to a point where the two of them are at the edge of

dying. Dumas being attacked by coyotes, and Mary almost freezing to

death.

After that harsh winter, their marriage fell apart. Mary found out

the extent of her power – she can show visions of the people who had died,

and everyone who touches her, or the body of the deceased can also see
 what she is seeing. People called for her, but her husband thinks that she is

using people’s grief for her advantage. People paid for her and Dumas

thinks that it is not right. Mary then insisted that she loves what she is

doing, and left Dumas.

After 20 years of being separated, Dumas wrote to her, and she

answered giving him a plane ticket to Chicago, which brings us to the

present time. Dumas then met his wife once again, and he witnessed her

wife’s magic, which led him to believed everything that she had been

telling him.

The story ended with a speechless couple, holding hands together in

front of a pond, in a snowy December.

3. Character List

a. Mary Roberts - The Hunter’s Wife - She was a magician's assistant,

beautiful, fifteen years old (at the time of their meeting), an orphan. Later

in the story she became famous for her so called “gift”, she hones this

talent/gift while stuck in the snowed-in Valley all winter. This gift helps

her through being able to connect living to their lost love ones. She can see

where the dead goes and what they feel.

b. Mr. Dumas - The Hunter – Guides people to wilderness who comes to do

sort of a hunting. Courted the young lady Mary Roberts for three years and
 marry her. After having not seeing His wife for 20years, He wrote a letter

and received a response inviting him to one of His wife’s performance. He

went and finally able to personally experience His wife’s gift.

c. President O’Brien – A famous, tall, remarkably thin man in the city.

Stricken in the lost his family and was able to ask help form Mary Roberts

through her gift.

d. Anne - Woman from the University – Driver

e. University's chancellor

f. Bruce Maples - A man in gray corduroy. Knows Mary Roberts through

reading her books.

g. Tony Vespucci – The Magician

h. Marlin Spokes - a snow-plough driver the hunter knew from grade

school. He slid off the Sun River Bridge in his plough and dropped forty

feet into the river, causing his death. It was in his death where the gift of

Mary Roberts was discovered by so many and spread throughout vast

areas.

4. Themes
a. Marriage

The Hunter’s Wife depicts a story of a married couple who is

struggling to be on the same reality. It talks about how marriage is not just

like a hunt, but rather a more complicated relationship. Marriage is not

just about being able to provide for your partner, but rather understanding

and trusting him/her.

b. Believing

There are many realities in the world, each one is different from the

other. However, this story tells us that peeking into another person’s

reality no matter how absurd it looks, nor how unbelievable it is, will help

us understand each other better. If only the Hunter decided to reach for

the hand of his wife, and see the visions earlier, they could have ended in a

completely different scenario. Believing is hard, but when one put his/her

faith, and experiences the magic that he/she ought to believe, it can

change a life.

c. There is always something positive even in negative situations

Though winter can be viewed as something hard to deal with,

especially in the lives of Dumas and his wife, it still brought the most

beautiful memories for the two of them. They met during winter, she

discovered her magic during winter, and they came together once again

during a winter season.

 d. There will always better days ahead.

Winter can be disastrous, it can be harsh, and sometimes deadly,

but there is always spring at the end of every winter. Dumas and Mary may

have faced the hardest winter, but they survived. Just like in life, people

may face the hardest challenges, we may experience extreme battles, but

there is always hope. No matter how life sucks, there will always be better

days ahead.

e. True love endures

No matter the distance, no matter the length, when one does truly

love another, it will remain and will endure.

5. Symbolisms/Motifs

a. Winter – It symbolizes death, loneliness, despair, and hardship.

b. Spring – Symbolizes hope, new beginning, and new life.

c. Touch – More than its literal meaning, in the story, a touch symbolizes

belief. Dumas, given the opportunity to see the visions just by touching his

wife, did not do so. At the end, when he experienced her magic, he then

reached out for her hand as they stood silent in front of the pond.

d. Hunter’s first-time outside Montana – this symbolizes his first time

leaving out of his roots, leaving out of his comfort zone. This also

symbolizes his desire to discover new things (his wife’s magic)

e. Wind – This symbolizes the invisible forces that needs to be faced.

 6. Analysis of The Hunter’s Wife

Viewed under the lens of Structuralism, the story of The Hunter’s Wife

follows a series of flashbacks involving Dumas, a hunter, and Mary Roberts, his

wife. Between the flashbacks, the present rolls into action, delivering both the

present and the past into one narrative.

Binary Opposition

Throughout the stories, different conflicting ideologies were seen, and

these were utilized to dig deeper into the meaning of the short story.

1. Man vs. Nature

a. Man vs. Season – Winter became his (Dumas) constant struggle. Every

time winter comes, he needs to fight against the winter in order to keep

himself and his wife alive.

“Both of them lived on the grip of forces they had no control over – the

October winds, the revolutions of the earth.”

b. Man vs. Animals – Due to scarcity of food, Dumas also faced coyotes who

are also facing the same challenges as they have.

“He spent his whole quiver: a dozen arrows. The yelps of speared coyotes

went up. A few charged him, and he lashed them with his knife. He felt

teeth to the bone of his arm…”

2. Expectation vs. Reality

 He thought marrying her would be just like hunting. But the reality

is more than that. Staying with her made him realize that after hunting

(courting) her, and making her say yes, it would all end up happily.

“Three years he had dreamed this girl by his fire. But somehow it had

ended up different from what he had imagined. He had thought it would be like a

hunt—like waiting hours beside a wallow with his rifle barrel on his pack to see

the huge antlered head of a bull elk loom up against the sky, to hear the whole

herd behind him inhale and then scatter down the hill. If you had your opening

you shot and walked the animal down and that was it. But this felt different.”

3. Husband vs. Wife

The two have completely different way of living. Dumas enjoys the spring

and summer wherein he can hunt, and work and provide food for the two

of them.

“The river thawed and drove huge saucers of ice toward the

Missouri. The hunter felt that old stirring, that quickening in his soul, and

would rise in the wide pink dawns, grab his fly rod, and hurry down to the

river. Already trout were rising through the chill brown water to take the

first insects of spring. Soon the telephone in the cabin was ringing with

calls from clients, and his guiding season was on.”

Mary on the other hand prefers winter wherein she can explore her magic.
 “She longed for the stillness of winter, the long slumber, the bare sky, the

bone-on-bone sound of bull elk knocking their antlers against trees.”

4. Belief vs. Disbelief

This is the main conflict of the story. The hunter failed to believe in the

magic of his wife. Thus, resulting to the two of them separating for 20

years.

“He rolled onto his back and watched shadows shift across the

ceiling. "Winter is getting to you," he said. He resolved to make sure she

went out every day. It was something he'd long believed: go out every day

in winter, or your mind will slip. Every winter the paper was full of stories

about ranchers' wives, snowed in and crazed with cabin fever, who had

dispatched their husbands with cleavers or awls.”

She was in Butte or Missoula when he discovered her money in a

boot: six thousand dollars and change. He canceled his trips and stewed

for two days, pacing the porch, sifting through her things, rehearsing his

arguments. When she saw him, the sheaf of bills jutting from his shirt

pocket, she stopped halfway to the door, her bag over her shoulder, her

hair pulled back.

"It's not right," he said.

She walked past him into the cabin. "I'm helping people. I'm doing

what I love. Can't you see how good I feel afterward?"

 "You take advantage of them. They're grieving, and you take their

money."

"They want to pay me," she shrieked. "I help them see something

they desperately want to see."

"It's a grift. A con."

She came back out on the porch. "No," she said. Her voice was quiet

and strong. "This is real. As real as anything: the valley, the river, your

trout hanging in the crawl space. I have a talent. A gift."

He snorted. "A gift for hocus-pocus. For swindling widows out of

their savings." He lobbed the money into the yard. The wind caught the

bills and scattered them over the snow.

She hit him, once, hard across the mouth. "How dare you?" she

cried. "You, of all people, should understand. You who dreams of wolves

every night."

5. Growth vs. Stagnancy

“She felt a foreign and keen sensitivity bubbling in her blood, as if a

seed planted long ago were just now sprouting.”

As the days went by, Mary learned more of her powers. She studied more

about it through books that she bought. Dumas on the other hand stayed on his beliefs.

He also wanted Mary to stop what she’s doing. Although Dumas is a man of spring and
summer, and his wife the person of winter, it seems like he was the one frozen in a state

of mind.

References

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/03/books/rivers-run-through-it.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/05/the-hunters-wife/302198/