Sophia Alexandra Colov, 2p English assignment August 2012
Popular Mechanics
by Raymond Carver
The short story ‘Popular Mechanics’ by Raymond Carver is about two people who are in a huge fight. The narrator of the story does not describe the characters’ feelings or looks in this story, and that is why the setting in ‘Popular Mechanics’ is very important because they symbolize the events and the main characters, so as readers we have to make our own details and pictures of how each person in the story feels and looks like.
“Early that day the weather turned and the snow was melting into dirty water.” (p. 1, l.1-2)
This element tells us what is going on inside the house. All these things that are happening outside are also happening mentally inside. The use of the word snow can mean pure and compares to the relationship of the man and the woman, before it melted to dirty water, which could be a separation.
The use of adjectives bad and dark shows us how the emotions and mood is of the main characters.
“Cars slushed by on the street outside, where is was getting dark. But is was getting dark on the inside too.” (p. 1, l. 3-5) This shows how the love, the relationship was built on, that love is now gone and the relationship is going to end.
The story begins – in medias res. As readers we do not get the explenation of how the argument between the man and the woman started, but we know they are about to be separated because of the use of adjectives as “sad”, “dark” and “cry”. These adjectives would not be in a story about a happy mariage.
As readers we get in a middle of an argument. A man is packing a suitcase and is about to leave. “Son of a bitch! I’m so glad you’re leaving! She began to cry. You can’t even look me in the face, can you?” (p. 1, l. 11-12) The woman yells at him and that describes how the woman has been hurt by something we do not know the background of.
The climax of the story begins when the woman takes away the babypicture that the man had decided to take with him. This action gets him very upset, and they start fighting over their baby.
“For God’s sake! she said. She took a step back into the kitchen. I want the baby” (p. 2, l. 8-10) – It is not difficult to see how important the child is for both of them.
The flowerpot in this upcoming quotation is a symbol for the relation between the man and the woman but also the vulnerability of the baby, so when the flowerpot breaks in the story the baby gets psychologically hurt, and the relationship ends. “The baby was red-faced and screaming. In the scuffle they knocked down a flowerpot that hung behind the stove.” (p. 2, l.18-19)
The ending of the story tells us how selfish a person can be. “But he would not let go. He felt the baby slipping out of his hands and he pulled back very hard. In this manner, the issue was decided.” (p. 3, l. 3-5)
The narrator’s point with this story is that people can act selfish and greedy in a childish way.
As it stand in The first Book of the Kings 3, “And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.” (p. 2, 25¶) The king want the two women to share the baby which would be normal, but he says that they shall share the baby by cutting it into two halves.
“Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.”
You can be greedy and feel bad afterwards, or you can feel merciful and feel good about it.
This quotation shows how one of the women acts like a mother should do. She says to the king that he should not kill the baby but give it to the other woman instead. Therefore the king gives the baby to the mother who gave away her baby, because he thinks that the baby belongs to that woman who actually loves her baby, and also because the other woman does not seem to love her baby if she is willing to cut it into two halves.
The man and the woman are suddenly not fightening about their loveable baby, but they act like they are children and are fighting about a doll. They forget that the baby can get hurt and mentally hurt also. I think that it is the main point in this story, and I think that is why the main title is ‘Popular Mechanics’, because the little baby become a mechanical thing that they both want so bad.
Raymond Carver writes his stories in a very minimalistic way. The settings in the beginning of the story determines the remainder part of the story.
Minimialism is a way to write fiction. Minimialism has a slogan that says less is more. The use of adjectives decides the atmosphere in the story and the characters’ inner feelings and moods, so even though we, as readers, do not get a description of the person’s feeling we know how they feel and why they act like they do because of the setting in the story.
In minimalism there is no personal emotions or feelings as the same in ‘Popular Mechanics’, where there is no description of the characters’ feeling either.
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