I could not help but feel sorry for the baby as I read this story. I felt anger and disgust for the couple. Neither one of them had enough common sense or self control to recognize that they were both hurting the baby. Carver uses symbolism with the couple's struggle over the baby. This was a physical struggle over a baby and the baby was physically suffering. This is representative of relationships overall where there are children involved and the couple decides to part ways. The children are the ones who suffer the most. I also see symbolism when Carver uses the line “But it was getting dark on the inside too”. By “dark” I believe he was talking not just about the level of brightness but also referring to the brewing conflict.
Although we don’t get many details of the setting, we can tell by Carver’s style that this was a small house. He uses the word “little” in two different sentences when describing aspects of the house. In the second sentence of the first paragraph he says, “Streaks of it ran down from the little shoulder-high window that faced the backyard”. A few paragraphs from there we see “She stood in the doorway of the “little” kitchen, holding the baby". The fact that there is a backyard tells us it’s a house and by utilizing the word "little" multiple times we can tell that it was small. Also, when he describes the scene in the kitchen by the stove we get a sense of a small cramped space. The stove must have been pretty small because the man was able to reach across the stove into the corner where the woman was and grab the baby.
The irony of the story is revealed at the end. When Carver writes, “She would have it, this baby”, we get a sense that the woman will win the struggle. However, the man makes the final pull and then Carver writes “In this manner, the issue was decided”. I wonder if this final statement has a double meaning. I kind of think it means the “issue” is more than just who gets the baby but I dare not read more into the story than is actually there.
I also got a feeling that the ending stood for more then just the man winning over control of the baby. As terrible as it is to believe, it feels like Carver is leading on to the fact that the man may have hurt the child, or worse, even killed it. By saying that the issue was decided by this last powerful use of force and then ending the story abruptly, we are lead on to believe that the issue of the baby being fought over is resolved by the unfortunate harm done to the child.
ReplyDeleteI had the assumption of the baby being seriously hurt and by that I mean death. I thought at one point as well that the father was going to win the baby over and the mother would just give up so the baby wasn't put through anymore pain. They let their selfish attitudes destroy the family and the one thing that they both cared about. I dare not say love. I'm pretty sure as a mother, I would love my child so much if it meant giving them up for their safety I would.
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