The Parring Knife By John Wayman Analysis

The theme of Popular Mechanics is that fighting over something precious can often cause injury to it or destroy it completely. The baby cries and turns red in the face, the woman insists the man is hurting the baby but does not let go herself, and the piece ends with the two having a sort of tug of war over the baby and the ominous line “in this manner, the issue was decided.” The plot of this piece is a man and a woman end their relationship, the man prepares to leave, and the two fight over who will take a baby, presumably theirs. Theme and plot are deeply intertwined, without plot the theme cannot exist beyond a mere statement. The plot develops the theme, creating a story around it in order to develop and reveal it. The plot shows how two people might come to be fighting over something precious to both of them and that the thing they care about, in this case a baby, may come to be frightened, injured, or killed by their refusal to put selfishness aside in
They made up and cleaned the mess, but had not found the knife. At the end of this piece the man starts to ask the woman if she remembers the incident but she puts the knife back under the refrigerator before he has the chance to. While I feel that The Paring Knife leaves much open to interpretation, my belief is that the theme of this piece is that parts of the past can be forgiven, forgotten, and moved past. The knife symbolizes the fight and the refrigerator the past. By putting the knife back under the refrigerator, the woman shows that the fight is in the past, forgiven and laid to rest. It is possible for them to move