The Storm as Symbol of Chaos
The natural world is usually presented as the agent of inexplicable and random chaos, but in this story it is not the fault of nature that things go haywire. Still, a winter blizzard rages outside the hotel as a symbol for what is taking place inside. The most immediate and direct use of imagery to convey this symbol occurs fairly early on when the narrator personifies nature by describing…
“The huge arms of the wind were making attempts—mighty, circular, futile—to embrace the flakes as they sped.”
The imagery here is multilayered. First, it suggest that nature is made of components not always working in tandem: the wind is at odds with the snow and, like everything else in the story, out of sync. The personification of the wind as something human trying to do something impossible also foreshadows the inability of the characters to wrap their arms around a problem that may seem equally impossible.
Disquiet and Distancing
The definition of onomatopoeia usually references its use as creating the imitation of a sound; in other words, it is not the real thing, but to a point a deception. Rather than describing the literal reality of an act, then, the author chooses to create distance from reality by substituting an imitation. In describing how the Cowboy plays cards, the narrator assigns his actions substitute sound-alikes such as “board-whacker” and “whanged.” The proprietor isn’t merely talking to Swede, he is “jabbering” at him. Different kinds of wordplay also have the effect of adding to the whole sense of things being slightly out of sync. Examples range from unusual idioms like “the men found tongue together” and what one assumes to be a case of colloquial patois like “I have a mind to lather you for this” all contribute the story’s overall sense of disquiet and dread that something is definitely not quite right, but that something isn’t easy to identify.
Animal Imagery
The distancing device is intentionally adopted to reveal what happens when men don’t behave like noble creatures and instead fall back upon their most primitive instinct of putting self-interest above everything else. This primitive distancing is further conveyed through judicious repetition of imagery which compares the world of men to the world of nature; specifically to animals. Thus the suggestion is made complete: chaos comes to town because these men are acting like animals. The Easterner accuses the Cowboy of being a bigger jackass than Swede. The Cowboy claims he’d like to take a hammer to Swede until he resembled a dead coyote. The narrator describes the look in the eyes of two men about to progress from argument to physical altercation as possession a “leonine cruelty.” Everyone has become so distanced from humanity that they are now at the level of pure beast.
The Conceit of Man
The narrator sums up the thematic implication of the story quite succinctly with the assertion that “the conceit of man was explained by this storm to be the very engine of life.” Conceit in this case is a synonym for pride in all many forms, not just the modern concept of being conceited. A careful examination of the text reveals that the author has been planting the seeds of this moral long before it is forthrightly addressed. The Cowboy’s method of card-playing is described as a showcase of “prowess and pride.” The Swede’s manner of conversation is described as arrogant. The Gambler’s victims are reckless farmer flushed with proud confidence normally reserved for only for the invulnerably stupid. Meanwhile, the card-playing son of the hotel’s proprietor lives an entire life which exudes the smug hubris of a man who knows he can cheat at will precisely because he will never be accused of it. All these displays of the various forms of conceit serve to prove the narrator’s contention because there is something rotten in the town of Fort Romper.
