The Flowerpot Setting

Marriage is a full-time job on its own and people should communicate with each other in order to have a healthy marriage for them to love and appreciate each other so they can grow old together. Most of us know by now that the fairy tale happily ever after stories are full of holes. Carver emphasizes that when there is no communication in the marriage the wife starts to feel unhappy and frustrated with him. The wife’s attitude with her husband suggests that the marriage doesn’t seem to be working for her. Carver states, “My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at me. I had the feeling she didn’t like what she saw. I shrugged (38). ” There was unhappiness in the marriage and the narrator and his wife didn’t seem to get along. In other words the

Compared to the extravagant and enigmatic writing style that a lot of authors prefer, Carver chooses to employ a minimalist style in “Everything Stuck to Him”, which means his sentences are devoid of elaborate details, explanations,

The Winter is the opposite of summer, during the winter not only does the winter change but the town's appearance. The houses that once looked artificial were exposed and looked abandoned. “Winter comes down savagely over a little town on the prairie...The roofs, that looked so far away across the green treetops...they are so much more uglier then when their angles were softened by vines and

As the story progresses, the readers see a falling out of that marriage for obvious reasons.

Hawthorne describes a cold and gray day.  This description gives the reader a sense of isolation as well as slight depression.  However, the mention of a slight breeze that ruffles the canopy of the forest just enough to let in little flickers of sunshine conveys a fleeting ray of hope that seems to coexist with the gloominess in the scene.  In many scenes during the book, moods or prevailing feelings are established through descriptions of the natural surroundings of the characters.  This aspect of Hawthorne's writing makes the book deeper and more emotional.

Carver also emphasizes the contradictions within the characters themselves in the story, which illustrates the uncertainty of love, and how there is not a clearly defined approach to understanding it. Returning to the topic of Terri's previous marriage, Mel, her current husband, complains about his failure to understand how she could refer to that abusive relationship as love. However, later on when she corrects him while he is talking, he turns to her and asks her to "shut up" (Carver 767). Another important contradiction which takes place throughout the entire story, is how the four friends are discussing a subject which they all have had bad experiences with, since they have all been divorced and remarried. The contradictions throughout Carver's story symbolize how love can also contradict itself, and trying to understand love is impossible since so many particular cases can negate specific examples of love.

Finally, it appears that Carver does not give an adequate description of his characters. The male and the female characters in this story are flat, stock characters. Because Carver relies on commonly held gender-based stereotypes this helps the reader to create his or her own image of the characters. The need for physical or psychological description is not necessary. For example, the woman?s opening statement, ?I?m glad you?re leaving! I?m glad you?re leaving! Do you hear?? (265), illustrates that she is a stereotypical, emotional female, who is out of control. Furthermore, the man?s refusal to acknowledge her illustrates a stereotypical male response to conflict. It shows that he considers her unworthy of a response. As if the same fight has occurred many times before and he knows there is no sense in replaying this scene again. The story escalates to a

Raymond Carver writes his stories in a minimalistic manner to be free of any excess details and overly descriptive passages. By adhering to this particular style, Carver’s characters have very little personality or description of appearance. Minimalism is shown

The inner story starts when the father is telling his grown daughter about a particular instance when they were young. Carvers use of language, symbolism, and minimalistic style impacts the meaning and development of his short story.

Carver leaves out quotation marks during dialogue between the broken couple. Sentences are short, to the point, and may even seem choppy at times. For example, the female character is bursting full of emotion as if she were an erupting volcano that had been dormant for so long. She just keeps telling him over and over to get out of the house, which indicates she may not really want him to go. It seems like a cry for responsiveness, one last effort to catch his attention and get him to stay. While the woman is crying and hollering, the narrator uses one quick sentence to show us the conclusiveness of the relationship, “He did not answer” (np, Carver). In this one brief statement, the readers can infer that this man has not really been present in this relationship for a while; he has made his decision and nothing can reverse it. Minimalism includes these brief sentences to arouse emphasis or even to increase tension. The lack of quotation marks also has influence on the tension in the story. Since punctuation usually signals a pause in the story, Carver’s decision not to include quotation marks may signify the pace of the argument. Just like the sentences are short and to the point, so is this

Similarly, Frost also uses descriptive adjectives to portray a significant moment in time, which creates imagery for the reader. In “Stopping by a Woods on a Snowy Evening” Frost uses the rule of three by listing the adjectives “lovely, dark and deep”. This, along with the alliteration in “dark and deep” creates a powerful image of the woods. By doing this, Frost is being metaphorical as the woods themselves represent solidarity and peace “He will not see me here” the personal pronoun “he” meaning society or God. Essentially, Frost is saying that when one steps out of life’s routine, it can be “lovely, dark and deep” which comes across as mysterious and unusual. It could also be said that because the three adjectives used are simple, they can be accessible for anyone to relate to.

Carver uses foreshadowing as a prominent element in this story. There are many examples of foreshadowing throughout the story. The first time the reader gets to see obvious foreshadowing is when the woman picks up the picture of the baby off the bed where the man is packing his belongings. “Then she noticed the baby’s picture on the bed and picked it up. He looked at her and she wiped her eyes and stared at him before turning and going back to the living room” (277). This small detail foreshadows that physical altercation that the couple will go through with the baby. The last big foreshadow that the reader gets is when the couple knocks over the flower pot. “The baby was red-faced and screaming. In the scuffle they knocked own a flowerpot that hung behind the stove” (277). This is very brief and only mentioned in this sentence. But this is the foreshadowing of the relationship that is broken, or even worse the baby being broken along with the relationship. While there are details at the beginning on the story, there are smaller things that can easily be looked over but are very important. The characters in this story, since it is minimalist fiction, are not ever given names. The characters are always just referred to as; the man, the woman, and the baby. The audience never finds out why the couple is breaking

Moreover, Carver uses first person point of view to describe the narrator’s life and the meaning of the cathedral to him. Through the first person point of view given to the narrator and one of the main characters of the story, Carver is able to portray a narrator who is jealous and insecure of himself. The narrator’s

Regarding structure, the story is told in third person by a narrator who tells the events as seen or remembered by a character. The language used by Bellow is simple. The major part of the story is formed by many short and, sometimes, incomplete sentences and phrases. However, those few words are enough to understand what is going on: "Winter.

The author seems as if he is distancing himself from the story. The main reason I believe this is his lack of detail and overuse of simple sentences. It’s like he is telling a painful story he doesn’t want to tell. This analysis is further supported by Carver’s own history of physical abuse from his father (Hall, 2009, para. 6). Therefore, the author’s point of view aligns with morbid realism.