In Mowat's story "Walk Well My Brother," Charlie Lavery undergoes a profound change in character as a result of the circumstances that he and Konala undergo in their attempt to survive the harsh and frigid Arctic wasteland. In the beginning of the story, Lavery is brash and rude, focused on his own survival and viewing Konala as "a bloody albatross around his neck" (Mowat 134). He is annoyed by her attempts to feed and help him and finally-assaulted by fear that he would not survive following the wreck of his plane-starts off across the frozen tundra without her, knowing that she was sick. This cold-blooded act, which might have been met by hostility or treachery on Konala's part, is instead greeted with solicitous care when she finds him downed and wounded days later. Despite her own illness, she nurses him back to health, seemingly immune to his rudeness and uncaring actions. When she encounters a bear shortly afterward, she cries out for Lavery's help, and for the first time in the story he rewards her forgiveness and love for him by laying his own life on the line for her. He distracts the bear from her, and it leaves them both alone. From this point on, Lavery cares for the dying Konala, preparing her food and allowing her to rest while he tends to their survival. As she lies dying, she hands him a new pair of skin boots she has made and tells him to "Walk well in them...my brother" (Mowat 148). Lavery has gone from being an uncaring tyrant to a "brother" by allowing himself to be transformed in his heart.
In Sinclair Ross's "The Lamp at Noon," Paul and Ellen are toiling on their farm that has been all but destroyed by drought. Beaten down by the ravages of nature, the couple are barely surviving, as their pathetic crop is dying for lack of water. They are hungry, and even their animals are starving, but nature seems implacable and they feel at a loss to do anything to overcome the situation. The sig<...