Edward Moore

Raymond carvers little things! Dirty realist!

Carvers ‘Little Things’ is at most an allegory, where its literal meaning hides the underlying meaning.
The title "Popular Mechanics" is a play on a magazine in the US of the same name. Popular
Mechanics emphasized science, as well as technology-based home improvement projects, many of
which were do-it-yourself. From this choice of title we can draw several interpretations. The couple
treats the termination of their marriage as a do-it-yourself home improvement project, and that
divorces are "popular" in the sense that they are the norm in modern society. The baby is treated as
a mechanical device rather than as a living, breathing child. The title also gets the imagination
working on the physics (the mechanics) of two adults pulling with all their might on the baby's arms.
The change in titles outlines Carvers feelings and general attitudes at particular points of his various
publications. Carver considered the story to be core to his work and each time he published it he
gave it a title that reflected his concerns for that particular collection. Thus "Mine" reflects the
battleground of marriage and relationships. "Popular Mechanics" reflects the stripped down menace
that pervades What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. And "Little Things" is a disheveled
rejoinder to the critics who labeled him a minimalist, which reflects a major concern of Carver's
when he published Where I'm Calling From. He wanted to present his work in a broader perspective,
illustrate that the minimalism (a label which he rejected) was just a technique used in some stories,
not the defining characteristic of his entire work. Essentially, ‘Little Things’ is a story that exaggerates
the affect of little things. This story deviates from the contemporary norms of literature as there is
no exposition; we are thrown into the scene at hand immediately with no retrospective
understanding. For Carver, “Less allows for more”. The short story is based vaguely, on Carver’s own
youth and the troubles he had faced growing up. With an alcoholic father and an extremely jealous
mother, Carver had witnessed many arguments between his parents. Carver’s writing style is so
minimalistic that we feel we have not yet heard the full story until we have read between the lines.
The endings of many of his tales, particularly ‘Little Things’ is very ambiguous which allows the
reader to relate to the story with their own personal experiences. We never hear the names of the
characters and are ill-informed of the situation which alienates us from said characters allowing a
greater personal opinion of the text. Many critics would agree that Carver’s stories are an attempt to
discover the mysteries of male action i.e. Alcohol abuse, violence and hatred of women which is
present in nearly all of the short stories. Women are generally associated with problems, moaning,
complaining and they often become the victims of violence. However, in ‘Little Things’ the baby, for
the most part, is the victim of violence. The woman herself is also a victim of patriarchal dominance
and clearly domestic violence. The key question here is what route is Carver taking the reader down
in terms of symbolism and critical perspective.

Carver is a minimalist. He abstains from using adverbs and prefers allowing the context to dictate
meanings. The literary device of minimalism is to promote the reader into taking an active role in the
story and to “choose sides” based on hints and innuendo rather than reacting to instructions from
the author. Symbolism is a key aspect of the minimalist style, ‘saying a lot without saying a lot’. Even
the most minimally developed fictions of Carver reveal a meticulously crafted order in which facts
offer reliable symbolic guideposts for the reader. ‘Little things’ plays on the little things; the picture
of the baby, the broken flower pot and even the weather at the start of the story:
Edward Moore

“Early that day the weather turned and the snow was melting into dirty water. Streaks of it ran down
from the little shoulder-high window that faced the backyard. Cars slushed by on the street outside,
where it was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the inside too.”

The first thing that jumps out is the artfulness of this point of view. The narrative voice that tells the
story is a great example of the complete objectivity of the narrator. With the absence of subjectivity
the story is wholly an observation brought vividly before you without any narrative intrusion
whatsoever. Carver lets the reader know that it is early in the couple’s relationship by using the
words “early that day.” He then uses weather to stand for their bond. “The weather turned” signifies
that the relationship turned early on. The irreversible transition from bright white snow to dirty
water signifies the loss of stability in the relationship. The wife taking the picture of the baby away
from the husband is symbolic of the events that are about to occur, if the man cannot have the
picture, he will take the real thing. Feminist critic Gemma Radcliffe states that “the order of
character appearance in this story is dominantly patriarchal, the man is the first person we hear
from”. She also goes on to say that “the husbands desire for the baby itself is emblematic of males
natural desire for power and control over the perceived ‘submissive’ females even if that object they
desire has no use for them”. The baby and what it represents is ambiguous. Is it a symbol of the way
the couple have resolved differences all along, and the reason they are splitting up? Or does it
represent children in a divorce, pulled this way and that, used and forgotten in the grown-up power
struggle that surrounds them as they are innocently ‘torn’ apart by uncaring parents

’Little Things’ is a clear indication of the Marxist concept of ‘Materialism’ as the baby becomes an
object of consumption. Not literal consumption but consumption of gratification. The child is
referred to as ‘this’ baby and is the only ‘thing’ that will make both the man and woman happy. Both
parties fight over this ‘object’ and during this struggle a flowerpot above the stove is knocked down
and broken. Here we see carver effortlessly employ the use of symbolism to address the point that
this should have been an indication to the parents that all things break, even a relationship or even a
child. The majority of Carver’s tales are based around the everyday struggles and problems
encountered by ordinary people, essentially, the lower class. The settings he uses within his tales are
reflective to that of his own childhood and dramatically express the surroundings of the lower class
in the absence of ‘material’ wealth. In ‘Little Things’ the description of the house relates to the class
of the family. The ‘little shoulder-high window’ and ‘little kitchen’ show that the family aren’t very
well off and clearly in the lower class strata of society. Carver’s choice to write predominately about
the lower class is completely based around his own experiences and childhood.

Ultimately, in this story Carver explores the taboos of domestic violence and child abuse in line with
Feminism, patriarchal dominance and Marxism with class differences. He places great importance on
non-important objects such as the flowerpot through his use of symbolism and his minimalistic style.
This story is reflective of the Old Testament passage where King Solomon threatens to divide a baby
in two with a sword as a means to settle a dispute between two women claiming to be the baby's
mother. However, the majority of readers and critics believe that this story is effectively an
expression of the struggles within families and relationships and the ways in which some of these
‘issues’ are ‘decided’