Pitgorm: A Short Story

snow, the snapping of twigs in the frigid air, in the long, star-hung nights, a coyote’s yelp, the

When given the task to study the wolves, Mowat is given a packet about their traits. “The wolf is a savage, powerful killer. It is one of the most feared and hated animals known to man, and with excellent reason” (Mowat 60). Everyone in the Canadian territory believes that wolves are deadly creatures, yet they don’t have a specific reason why. People start to believe things because someone says something that seems realistic. Mowat was suspicious about the reasons, but realized they were unnecessary. Mowat’s mind is set that wolves are vicious and people need to keep a safe distance. Over time, learning more facts about the unknown, it changes people’s viewpoints about the world in which they live in.

The narrator then gets up and walks outside, and then the unexpected happens. “…The changing” takes place in the husband. His change makes it to where “the hair begun to come away all over his body…he was white all over, then, like a worm’s skin…” This continues the idea that not everything is exactly as it seems. The wife was in shock since her husband “turned into the hateful one.” The “thing my [the wife] husband had turned into” then howls “a crazy, awful howling”, which can be thought as the yelling a human does. This creature is then told to be a “man thing”, or man, who “had no gun, like the ones from man places do”. Men who hunt wild animals will most often have a gun or weapon for defense, but since this man had no weapon he “picked up a heavy fallen tree branch in its long white foot.” This startles the wolf family because the mother “knew the man would kill” the wolf puppies. The wife knows that her husband would never be so cruel to his kind, but she now knows that her husband is not a wolf. He is a strong man who is ready to kill if it’s

“Who are they?” Asked Georg quickly, straining his eyes to see what the other gladly would not have seen. “Wolves.”

The author makes use of the symbolism of the wolves in order to explore conformity within society and how it impedes individual from pursuit of liberation. The first wolf symbolizes the freedom of an individual deviant against societal expectations.However both wolves represents the challenges and the fears of liberty of the bound man faces as he questions his limitations whether “he could amount to without it.”(pg.6). The first wolf proved to be the bound man’s attempt to conform with society, without the ropes “perhaps he would have tried to run away”(pg.5). In the moment he tried conquering his fear of freedom, it seemed completely paradoxical as his limitations allowed him to feel as free. However when his ropes was severed and consequently,

The Ninemile Wolves is a compelling nonfiction story told by Rick Bass, while Bass approaches the wolves with a mixture of awe, compassion, and fascination; others in the area are less welcoming, including some local ranchers, hunters and politicians. The wolves are studied by Bass, Rick Jimenez, and others of how they are endeavoring for their presence in the Ninemile Valley in Montana. Bass consumes his reader into his work by using both scientific and spiritual relevance of the wolves, and how they balance the ecosystem. While the biologist are cheering for the survival of the Ninemile pack ranchers, hunters, and politicians are concerned that they will attack livestock and decimate the population of elk and deer. However, despite all the stereotypes put into place the wolves survive off small mammals, and stray away from large pray. Bass anthropomorphizes the wolves by saying they have a soul like humans, and their spirit has an effect on the Ninemile Valley.

Outcroppings of Pine and Birch shifted in the unrelenting wind as if they were the scales on the bodies of primordial dragons attempting to settle their massive forms into the damp ground beneath them. An endless horizon of white edged waves bit at the tails of one another in a crashing cacophony until they foamed, frothed and broke against the shore.

Some explanations may include some kind of demon, an angry spirit from the surrounding land

Flies and glossy black ravens burst from the squirming mound, forming a twisting gyre of ill in the air. They mirrored the dust devils in the fields around them. His steps, like his song, faltered, and then stopped. He knew what lay ahead. Knew what filled his gut with such fear and revulsion.

The frigid, icy wind caught northstar’s fur like the bear that ripped open his back unveiling the bloody scar carved there, as he neared the door to the building made of ice, he reached for the handle with his mouth and yanked it open as he ran inside to his locker, looking on top of it seeing a polished bright blue sign showing the mascot. As he sprinted into the room where his only friend sat, and an adult wolf at the desk in the back of the room taking attendance.

Borador hammerfist was the dwarven leader of the iron wolves. He was a short black bearded man with an even shorter temper. Unlike the battle axe he wielded. His long beard hung nearly to his belly button. The beard was braided with little iron clamps at the end of each braid. This great and mighty beard never got in his way in battle. The hair on his head was shaved into a Mohawk. The sides of his skull had two tattoos of wolves. One on each side of his head. One wolf looked very peaceful and graceful, but the other was a demonic figure. These two tattoos meant everyone has a lighter and darker side. When people looked into this dwarves ice cold blue eyes. They would see into the gates of hell themselves. Almost able to feel the flames upon

our journey came upon us. The sun had just climbed over the first huge hill and its brilliant

their food?. But author now amazed the readers as further the story tells us that now the wolves

His father’s attempts at punishment failed miserably, as Hound in an angered state of his father’s betrayal, bit his hand until it hung dangerously from a small piece of skin. Hound hunted more animals, leaving them to rot around the village. The young group of boys stopped playing outside, out of fear that Hound would hurt them too. News of a rabid half beast, half human had spread to other villages, causing whatever visitors that came before, to ignore this village above the sea, almost religiously. Hound had felt proud of himself, but he had no idea that the other villages weren’t the only ones to hear of his

The sunset was not spectacular that day. The vivid ruby and tangerine streaks that so often caressed the blue brow of the sky were sleeping, hidden behind the heavy mists. There are some days when the sunlight seems to dance, to weave and frolic with tongues of fire between the blades of grass. Not on that day. That evening, the yellow light was sickly. It diffused softly through the gray curtains with a shrouded light that just failed to illuminate. High up in the treetops, the leaves swayed, but on the ground, the grass was silent, limp and unmoving. The sun set and the earth waited.