Little Things Raymond Carver

We often find ourselves disagreeing with those that mean so much to us over the smallest things. Raymond Carver write's, " Little Things" and portrays a real example of a couple in a disagreement with symbolism. The symbolism allows the reader to have a visual of people who are together that find some of the smallest things to argue about that turns into something much bigger. Carver does a good job of showing the repercussions when the smaller things get to someone rather than letting it go. Life becomes simpler when the arguing of simple, pointless things is reduced to a low amount. Carver uses symbolism allowing the reader to comprehend,” Little Things,” in their own perspective of what the story is trying to represent.
Starting off the …show more content…
The story mentions "Light" quite a few times and progressively gets darker as the story goes on. The use of light indicates and describes how the couple’s relationship is going from the beginning to the end of it. In the beginning, it says, “Early that day weather turned.” (Carver) Being early in the day, theat is an indication that there is light outside. The next line claims," it was getting dark on the inside too." (Carver) This could be symbolism for the couple and how they are feeling about one another or how the whole relationship is going. Being mad at one another with the man packing his bags and the woman yelling at him, they are separating causing the whole relationship to turn for the worse, or darker. As mentioned before, the man traps the woman in the kitchen corner at the end of the story. During that scene light is mentioned, “The kitchen window gave no light.” (Carver) As the story is coming to an end, so is the relationship. The beginning light was with the two somewhat being tolerant with one another, even though the woman was yelling at the man. Now, no light, the couple is fighting over their child, or relationship if the reader chose to view the child as a symbol. The light shows how the story goes from starting off as a tolerable relationship, to one that both parents are in almost a fight. Another use of symbolism is, again, in the kitchen scene. The flowerpot that was hanging in the kitchen was knocked over. This could be interpreted as a symbol of the breaking point of the relationship. The couple had enough of one another and began to turn things to the worse scenario, fighting over their kid. Children, like in this example, become the middle ground for many situations between parents and often are the ones to suffer the