Essay Comparing The Bath And A Small, Good Thing By Raymond Carver

No two stories are the same, even when written by the same author with similar plot and characters. Raymond Carver covers this with his stories, “The Bath” and “A Small, Good Thing.” Both stories recount a young boy, who was hit by a car and die. There is much more to each story than the analogous plot. Each story develops their characters differently and place emphasis on certain details. With the use of details, there is less ambiguity in one story than there is in the other. These stories offer a look at the editing process and how it affects the overall story. The overall story is much more effective in its original form “A Small, Good Thing,” which uses much more description and details than its counterpart, “The Bath.”. “The Bath” and “A Small, Good Thing” are supposed to be the same story, but with character development, ambiguity, and pacing the two stories turn out to be substantially different.
The plot of “The Bath” is a shortened version of “A Small, Good Thing” so it lacks much of the details that gives “A Small, Good Thing” an eloquent plot. The story of “The Bath” ends at the midpoint of “A Small, Good Thing. By ending at the midpoint, “The Bath” has a certain ambiguity that compels the reader to think what Carver meant by how he ended it and what happened to the boy. “A Small, Good Thing” is much less ambiguous …show more content…
Both stories are quite unrealistic with a boy dying after being tapped by a car, but “A Small, Good Thing” makes the reader feel that the “A Small, Good Thing” world is their world. In “The Bath” the reader feels like an ignorant nonparticipant. Thus, I am inclined to be more attracted to “A Small, Good Thing” where I am very much a character who learns as they learn. This kind of storytelling allows the reader to see the story as themselves and not wonder how the characters