Little Things: A Tale of Marital Discord

morally un-acceptable but perhaps the essence and true meaning of the story could not have been achieved without that. The writer is immensely skilled, daring and imaginative in the choice of his words and plot setting. His minimal narrative style and plot lines is effective in capturing the reality of his characters and their emotional behavior.

The life of the characters is described in such a way that its theme seems closely related to Carver’s personal life. This story kind of surprised me because of its abrupt ending. The story ended without clear indication of who kept the baby or whether any harm was done to it. So, I think his description of the story was in-adequate. Perhaps he wanted to reduce the story merely to discuss the situation of couples facing problems in their lives. Even the reason of man leaving the house was not discussed.

Was the husband not satisfied with the relationship or was it the woman who was discontented? Perhaps Carver wanted to hint that this is the kind of situation where the couple cannot be helped and the result is eventually dreadful. The second thing which surprised me was the title “Little Things” of this story. The title fails to describe any particular character or situation in the story. It communicates on objects or matter about which authors’ and readers’ thoughts and feelings may widely vary.

Perhaps when the man was pulling the baby to himself, he was not caring that he could be hurting the baby and was regarding it as a mere little thing. They both were treating the baby more like a possession rather than a person. In

our effort to make sense of and conclude the story, we can simply compare it to the lives of couples which have been drastically reached the level of separation from each other. This story can be judged as a work in which the writer has avoided to spell out his opinions more clearly to his readers.