Fear and Uncertainty

Much of the story’s tone and structure is built around inherent ambiguities and fearful uncertainties built into its premise, and the narrative uses these uncertainties as a means of examining a gamut of human reactions to the fearful idea of uncertainty itself. This idea is firmly established. The story begins to explore this idea very early on, for after the Pedersen boy awakes, he says that a unknown intruder broke into his home with a gun, which is why the boy fled and nearly died in the snow. After hearing the boy’s story, Ma attempts several different tactics to portray the boy’s story as false. Even Hans, who believes the boy, is hesitant to do so. As Jorge states in narration, “[Hans didn’t want to believe the kid” (17), for believing the boy’s story necessitates coming to terms with all...