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Popular Mechanics Redmond Carver Analysis

Decent Essays

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

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