Analysis Of Popular Mechanics By Raymond Carver

In Raymond Carver’s Popular Mechanics, it is a story about a couple that has a failed marriage and how their child suffers from their negligence. In the beginning of the story the reader feels the intensity that is coming off the pages. A story that reflects how the line between anger and love blurs that leads to a very ugly end. As the story unfolds the reader begins to sense how the fight over their child would bring about a resolution that neither of them expected. In this story Carver uses different writing strategies to intensify what is going on. He utilize short sentence structure, to convey a serious tone that is extremely tense and creates a dangerous situation that has no chance to be resolved happily. Carver also uses symbolism …show more content…
Carver used short sentences to build the impact to the reader, as they were reading the story; which I thought was very genius. I thought this was a great idea because it kept the reader engaged on what was going on in the story. The short and preciseness of the sentences in this story made the story easy to understand and easy to keep up with as you continued to read along. There was also no confusion about what was going on in the story, so the reader knows there is turmoil going on in their life. For instance, when the narrator says “But it was getting dark on the inside too”, gives the reader a feeling that something bad is happening inside the house or that something bad will happen in the house, because when we think about darkness we think about something negative or something bad so the reader now clearly engaged. Another example of short sentence impacted the story is when the couple is arguing “Let go of him, he said. Don’t, she said. You’re hurting the baby, she said. I’m not hurting the baby, he said.” This short exchange between the couple brings the intensity level up even more because the reader can feel the pain of both parents, and you can also get a sense of the danger that the baby is in; while they were arguing. Those are just two examples where we as the readers get to see how the structure of the sentences impact the …show more content…
The narrator of the story starts it by saying “Early that day the weather turned and the snow was melting into dirty water.” when I read this line it just seemed like a random thing to put into the story, until you read the whole thing. After reading the complete story you realize that the snow melting is probably an analogy of the couple's relationship. I believe that the snow represents their marriage when it was at its best; pure as snow, happy, and extremely joyful. The snow melting into dirty water represents their marriage at the stage it is now; messy, falling apart, and no longer contains any purity. I believed that this was very simple and complex at the same time, the visual of pure white snow melting into dirty water represents something that is no longer pure, but now contaminated. The second example that I found was in the same paragraph towards the end of it. Cars slushed by on the street outside, where it was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the inside of the home, too. When the narrator says this he is telling the reader that as it is getting darker outside the atmosphere in the home was getting darker as well. The narrator makes it sound like the more the sun continues to fade away the more the light that was once in the home is following the same trend. This also foreshadows something horrible is going to happen in the home as