short story paper- Popular Mechanics

What if you made a decision you actually didn't want because you were going against someone who wanted the complete opposite? What if the decision made wasn't for either one of you? How would feel if the "compromise" wasn't even a compromise. you both lost what you wanted and could never get it back?



Style in the poem Popular Mechanics is very interesting. The "setting" in normal but as well as dim in a way that know something dreadful is going to happen. The author states that it was getting dark outside and on the inside also when he said "But it was getting dark on the inside too." This was set up to produce a tone of sorrow and calamity and confusion. The diction wasn't low but not too high either. You can tell someone intelligent wrote it. Both sides are agitated and frustrated with each other. The language is also contemporary. The story is actually a more modern short story.



The style of the poem already revealed that the tone was fairly enraged but changes to somber later on in the story. The setting already told us this even by saying "the snow was melting into dirty water. Streaks of it ran down from the little shoulder-high window..." The couple was also yelling in the story. This proves the anger and desperation between the couple to get what they want. And eventually they got something that neither of them wanted. As soon as the decision was made the entire poem's tone changed.



The irony in this short story was quite shocking. It ended up being that the baby was either killed or very badly injured. By the way the story was structured you would believe that either the mother would get the baby because of the way she protected it. She hovered over the child and also turned to the wall. At first I didn't even think that the father would try to physically take the baby away from the mother. But then you might predict that the father might actually get the baby because of the furious grip on the child's shoulder. The baby begins to cry and the mother yells that he is hurting the child. The father just simply yells back that he's not. Then they both eventually grab a wrist and pull back hard as if they are playing some game of tug-of-war. Then their decision was made in a rather brutal way.



Raymond Carver blended style, tone, and irony in a very unexpected way. In this story were domestic issues take place and take a life. The end leaves you with a heavy heart and a shocked expression. Everything about the ending (though very short) was startling. Even though the parents definitely got a bit violent towards the end it didn't seem as though something that disturbing would happen to the child. You would have never concluded by yourself that something that disturbing would happen before you read the line "she caught the baby around the wrist and leaned back." The only thing you could have concluded was that the ending was going to be bad because of the way Carver created the style which set up the sorrowful/incensed tone.



It reminds me of a biblical story that spoke of two women; one had a live baby and the other's baby died. The woman with the dead baby switched the babies but the real mother knew it wasn't her baby. They both went to king Solomon and plead their cases. So he suggested that they split the baby in half. The real mother spoke up and told Solomon that the other woman should take the baby. So he knew who the real mother was. It ended happy because the real mother got her child. In this story "Popular Mechanics," ended badly because the couple couldn't make a decision. The two women had Solomon to help them make a decision. They had no one so therefore the child was either killed or very badly injured.