Redmond Carver’s “Popular Mechanics” revolves around many enigmas, the most important of which is who, out of its two main characters: an unnamed man and an unnamed women, gets the baby. Likewise, this enigma, as well as others, is specifically designed to draws the reader into the story and let him/her determine it’s ultimate meaning. Similarly, when the reader is first introduced to the man, who is busy “pushing clothes into a suitcase” and the women, who is repeatedly yelling at him that she’s “glad you’re leaving!”, he/she is faced with several enigmas. These enigmas, such as why the man is leaving and why the women is so anxious to see him go, are unanswered by the stories end and force the reader to come to his/her own conclusions. Likewise, based on the image of the man packing his belongings and the women telling him she’s glad he’s leaving, readers, based on their own experiences and similar situations in other media , might assume that the two used to be a couple and that there was a breakdown in their relationship (a particularly ugly one at that, since the women calls the man a “son of a bitch”). …show more content…
This quarrel becomes so intense that, at the end of “Popular Mechanics”, both are grasping on to it, trying desperately to pull it out of the other’s hands. Likewise, this leads directly to the central enigma of the tale: who gets the baby? Furthermore, the answer to this enigma, is once again largely determined by the reader. For example, the fact that the man is willing to continue to grasp onto the baby despite the women’s exclamation of “You’re hurting the baby,” and the fact that, just as both individuals are pulling the baby towards them with all their might, Carver abruptly ends “Popular Mechanics” with the phrase “In this manner, the issue was decided.” a reader might assume that neither of the two individuals gets the
Conflict was used effectively in the short story to reveal the theme of the story. The boy has an internal conflict about which parent to stay with, and because his father left, he seemed to have favored him. He wanted him back so badly that every night, he watches him on the six o’clock news while wearing his old jackets. He was blinded by his father’s sudden departure that he forgot about what is really important. Additionally, another development in the short story’s conflict has been used effectively to reveal the theme. When the boy went to Macdonald’s to see his father’s true colors, he thought: “I finished my drink quickly, thankful that he had to be back in the studio for the news.” By the time he saw his dad for the first time in a while, he knew he was not the man he thought he was. At that moment, he also realized that he lost sight of what he had all this time: His mother’s unconditional love. If it wasn’t for the characterization of
In life, sometimes random events will lead to one’s death. These two stories, “Popular Mechanics” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, both portray this idea. “Popular Mechanics,” written by Raymond Carver, has a baby torn apart by its own mother and father's hate for one another. The mother randomly saw the picture of the child and took it, and this stirred up emotions in the both of them. Enough emotions to stop paying attention to the child’s well being. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is written by Flannery O’Connor, and in it a family of six crash because of their cat, and a murderer of a sort drives by randomly, eventually leading to the death of them all. In these two stories, both the important characters die in the climax, and both characters, baby and cat, are catalysis in the story. The style of each story is negative writing and destructive in nature.
“Jig” is a young, modern woman who is faced with the decision of prolonging her freedom and the stability of her relationship or accepting motherhood and the responsibility that comes with it. It is not to say that motherhood is a prison; it is that motherhood would be the death of everything she loved, mainly travelling, and the very stability of her relationship with her lover, “the American”. “The American” says, “‘That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.’” (Hemingway 115) which unequivocally shows that the center of conflict inside of their relationship is the presumed pregnancy.
Wyche disputes all the critics who suggested that the text was either about whether Jig should carry the pregnancy to a full term or have an abortion. Wyche feels that the text was a metaphor representing pain which comes as a result of an end of a relationship between two people. One of his main ideas was therefore to dispute some of the ideas that critics had put forward in the past and bring forward a new meaning to the short story. As Wyche noted most of the critics saw a metaphor of abortion but failed to see that the abortion could also be used as metaphor to mean something else which in this case means the pain of a breakup. By bringing other critic’s point of view into play, he successfully acknowledges what they wrote and their ideas but also presents him with a point to dispute the same. Even if he does not refuse the ideas produced by earlier critics, the author presents a different point of view from whatever was presented before.
Carver begins with the story?s conflict, a relationship between a man and woman that has already gone extremely wrong. He does not need to tell the reader why or how this relationship came to this point. Carver relies on the reader to know the usual reasons that cause people to split up. Therefore, this gives readers the opportunity to attach their own explanation. As the title, ?Popular Mechanics? implies, it is the common workings of relationships that can be applied throughout this story.
To mirror the couple’s confusion of life verses death through abortion, Hemingway arranges words and phrases to establish the story indirectly. While most who visit Europe enjoy it, literature and movies
The two tug back and forth for the baby, and in the end the two both yank at the baby closing the story with, “In this manner, the issue was decided,” (Carver 2). This leaves the reader up in the air on what happened, the reader is
As humans, we tend to rely on others to guide us in choosing “right” decisions. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” Ernest Hemingway tells a story of an American man with a girl, named Jig, having a conversation about whether or not Jig should undergo this “operation,” which we could assume is abortion. Jig looks to the man to tell her what she should do and what would happen afterwards, basically looking for a “right” decision. The girl is torn between listening to the man, who pushes her to have an abortion, or separating from the man, to instead, keep the baby. Hemingway uses setting and symbolism to interpret the girl’s struggle with abortion.
Relationships can be difficult, but a lot of couples work through the difficultly by supporting and helping each other. In the short story “Hills like White Elephants”, written by Ernest Hemingway, an unnamed American and a young woman, named Jig, are waiting for a train to arrive. Set in the mid-1920s, the couple are sitting at a bar drinking beers, and awaiting to travel to their next destination. Talking vaguely with each other, Jig describes the hills as “white elephants”, meaning an unwanted gift. During the story, the couple discuss an ‘operation’ that the man wants the girl to have, but she doesn’t to want to, symbolizing wanting to keep their unborn child. In this story, “Hills like White Elephant”, the theme is the ending of a relationship, by the of lack of communication, selfishness and choices.
The short story “Little Things” by Raymond Carver deals with the humanity’s spiteful nature and its desire to flaunt what others can not have. On the surface, the story is about a man, a woman, and baby, none of which have a confirmed relation to each other, and a dispute over who should keep the baby after the man leaves. As the story reaches its end, there is no clear winner and the reader has a sense of unease based on the last line, “In this manner, the issue was decided” (Carver). Carver’s use of dialogue, allusion, and sight/sound imagery help build the darker mood for the story, and his use of those elements ultimately leads to one of Carver’s main messages. By utilizing the previously listed items, Carver highlights the idea that
In “Happy Endings,” Margaret Atwood manipulates literary techniques to emphasize how each story can have different plots yet end up with the same ending. She makes the case that, in every ending, the characters finish having a happy ending and “eventually they die” (paragraph 4). She infers that it is the contents between the beginning, and the end that bring interest and challenge to the characters, while the beginnings are more fun. The “true connoisseurs” is an important element because it is what makes up the plot (paragraph 21). The six scenarios of “Happy Endings” introduce differences in the beginning and the middle of the plot but result in the same ending. The plot in each scenario focuses on the significance of understanding how
The readers first impression of the couple is dialogue. Dialogue is a very important element that contributes to the tone in “Popular Mechanics”. The dialogue in this story is almost exclusively short. The first time the reader gets dialogue is after the author sets the scene and initial mood. “I’m glad you’re leaving! I’m glad you’re leaving! She said. Do you hear?” (277). This automatically sets an aggressive and tense tone to the story. The reader is never told what the couple is breaking up over, the only thing the reader gets is that the couple is fighting over keeping the baby. The couple only really says that they want the baby, that is the majority of the dialogue in the story. Unspoken dialogue in “Popular Mechanics” is immensely important to the story. “He was in the bedroom pushing clothes into a suitcase when she came to the door” (277). This example shows the distance between the couple. The woman is constantly backing away and seemingly running away from the man, especially with the baby. There is finality in the story even though the reader never knows what the issues are in the relationship, why the man is leaving, or why they are separating. “In this manner, the issue was decided” (278). This short sentence sets the final tone of the story. There is something sinister and aggressive about this sentence. The audience does not know exactly what the issue is, but with the small
Major characters in stories often encounter moral conflicts. The way in which the characters respond to these dilemmas frequently emphasizes the author’s intended message. In “Good People”, written by David Foster Wallace, a young Christian couple is faced with an unplanned pregnancy, forcing them to make a decision regarding the termination of the child; causing them to battle with several moral and religious predicaments. Wallace mimics the anxiousness of a 19-year-old male through an unorganized style of writing and uses various details to illuminate the underlying message of the story. Similarly, in Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”, a man, referred to as the American and a women named Jig deal with an unexpected pregnancy, disrupting the normality of their relationship. Through symbolism, Hemingway is able to connote the limitation of language and demonstrate the complications the couple faces. In the short stories “Good People” and “Hills Like White Elephants”, both authors use literary techniques to reveal the struggles of communication, as well as the complexity of making choices.
Ernest Hemingway was an American author and journalist. One of his most famous and controversial pieces “Hills Like White Elephants” is frequently discussed among authors and readers. In this short story there is a girl and a American man sitting at a train station. The girls name is Jig, we come to find out that she is pregnant and that the two are disusing whether to keep the baby or not. They question each other to see if the options would ruin their relationship. Hemingway portrays things to serve as double meanings. Two of the main subtopics and questions formed from this paper is whether or not Jig has the baby. And whether of not the tense relationship between the two lasts. Among the many authors who have their own opinion on what these things mean is, timothy Obrien, who wrote, “Allusion, Word Play, and the Central Conflict in Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants”. In his paper he focuses on certain phrases to conclude his belief that Jig does get and abortion and that the relationship between Jig and the American does not last. A professor at Illinois state university by the name of Stanley Renner, author of “Moving to the Girls Side of “Hills Like White Elephants””, does not think the relationship lasts. Although the relationship does not last he believes that the baby does. David Wyche, author of “Letting the Air Into a Relationship: Metaphorical Abortion in “Hills Like White Elephants””, he is not
The pregnancy or baby can be seen as the “elephant” in the room. This couple is trying to decide whether or not to get an abortion. The antagonist in this short story is the male the main character (Jig) is taking to at a bar in a train station. In the story this male character is simply referred to as the American. The American does many things that make us believe he is mainly the decision maker in their relationship. He is in charge of their luggage as well as the destination of their travels. This implies a sense of control and dominance. The American is very supportive saying, “If you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to” (227). Despite the support he shows, throughout the story the reader can see that the decision of the women depends greatly on the American’s feelings and views.