Little Things by Raymond Carver is a small tale about a family breaking at the seams. It may seem like a sob story about how horrible regular life is for people, but it may be much more abstract than that. The critics were responded to Little Things in a literal sense where they did not look far beyond what Carver said. Students who read the story discussed it with a wide variety of ideas on how to interpret what it means and whether or not it makes any sense in the first place. With difficulty in interpreting the literal we have to get a bit abstract – or very abstract. Little Things has no set meaning intentionally made by Carver, therefore Carver instead opted for a piece that depends on what the reader makes of it in an abstract way by substituting the character of the …show more content…
The stretch between the literal, man and woman in a failing relationship, to an allegory for the relationship between nations is testament to the incredible vagueness and interpretability in Carver’s work.
In discussing how it seems like certain details were omitted from the story it made me think about an art piece our professor showed us. She showed us The Bull, by Picasso. The Bull is a series of drawing – all of which are a bull. The first of the series is a beautifully drawn bull that is easily discernable. In the last picture of the series it’s just a few squiggly lines sort of outlining the shape of the bull. Throughout the series Picasso took bits out of the bull it make it more abstract. We were left with something that is not easily discernable because large portions of the bull were taken out. It feels like Carver did the same thing with Little Things. Perhaps he initially had a full story, but for the final product he chose to make it minimalistic and open for abstraction. It is a bit visible in Little Things, there is one particular part that simply makes no sense. Just after the man is done packing his things he grabs a photograph of a child and