An Argument Gone Wrong
Taylor White
Sylvester
ENC 1102 7th period
22 August 2014
An Argument Gone Wrong
At the beginning of Raymond Carver’s story “Popular Mechanics,” the tone is anger and aggression. It begins when the man is packing his suitcase and his wife simply stares. The reader notices the physical distance between the couple and it seems very clear that the wife is pleased that her husband is leaving. The physical distance with the wife at the entrance of the room and the husband at the side of the bed shows that the two no longer wish to be together.
Carver opens the story with the sentence “Early that day the weather turned and the snow was melting into dirty water” (321). Snow is white, and the color white represents some kind of purity. Carver was saying that the couples relationship was once pure and healthy but now is not. With the child being in this middle of the husband and wife’s arguing, the relationship doesn’t improve when they start arguing over the child. Then, when Carver says it was getting dark on the inside too, he was foreshadowing the argument that comes later in the story and the fight over the child.
Carver also uses the word “little” a few times in the story when he describes the size of the house. The size of the small house could be symbolizing the relationship between the husband and wife, that it will never grow. When the wife is yelling “I’m glad you’re leaving!” (Carver 321), it shows that the couple no longer wants to be together, but seems mostly from the wife that they should separate. She wouldn’t even let him take a picture of their child with him. When Carver writes “In the scuffle they knocked down a flowerpot that hung behind the stove,” (322) it symbolizes what happens to the baby when the parents are fighting over the child. The parents should have taken this to court and decide which parent the child goes to instead of pulling on the baby and hurting the child. It is very sad that his actually happens in today’s world and that
Sylvester
ENC 1102 7th period
22 August 2014
An Argument Gone Wrong
At the beginning of Raymond Carver’s story “Popular Mechanics,” the tone is anger and aggression. It begins when the man is packing his suitcase and his wife simply stares. The reader notices the physical distance between the couple and it seems very clear that the wife is pleased that her husband is leaving. The physical distance with the wife at the entrance of the room and the husband at the side of the bed shows that the two no longer wish to be together.
Carver opens the story with the sentence “Early that day the weather turned and the snow was melting into dirty water” (321). Snow is white, and the color white represents some kind of purity. Carver was saying that the couples relationship was once pure and healthy but now is not. With the child being in this middle of the husband and wife’s arguing, the relationship doesn’t improve when they start arguing over the child. Then, when Carver says it was getting dark on the inside too, he was foreshadowing the argument that comes later in the story and the fight over the child.
Carver also uses the word “little” a few times in the story when he describes the size of the house. The size of the small house could be symbolizing the relationship between the husband and wife, that it will never grow. When the wife is yelling “I’m glad you’re leaving!” (Carver 321), it shows that the couple no longer wants to be together, but seems mostly from the wife that they should separate. She wouldn’t even let him take a picture of their child with him. When Carver writes “In the scuffle they knocked down a flowerpot that hung behind the stove,” (322) it symbolizes what happens to the baby when the parents are fighting over the child. The parents should have taken this to court and decide which parent the child goes to instead of pulling on the baby and hurting the child. It is very sad that his actually happens in today’s world and that