Fear and impotence are often expressed in projections and acts of violence. People try to compensate for their lack of power and control by projecting and personifying their anger and weaknesses and taking it out on others. They have a need to appear stronger than they are, and the best way of doing this is by making others feel weak and inferior.
A condition that provides optimum conditions for these psychological mechanisms is imprisonment. In the short story, First snow, we meet a group of young men incarcerated for serious first- or second time crime, who are projecting their fear and anger on Maurice. He differs from them by being black, and he’s both mentally and physically weak.
The bullying of Maurice is quite innocent in the beginning. The group only plays jokes on Maurice to : “ suspend the monotony of their rage” (p.2 line 24), and to feel the relief of laughter. They never touch him, because Greider constantly supervises them.
In line with the coming of winter, their mocking of Maurice gets more spiteful; the snowing and the coldness fill them with silent desperation, and the change of season reminds them of the fact, that life goes on in the outside world while they’re stuck in prison: “…so when the air got colder, and we knew winter was on its way, a certain desperation latched onto our hearts”. (p.2 lines 31-
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