Raymond Carver’s short story “Popular Mechanics” was written in the minimalist style, but that didn’t stop him from using rich and full uses of imagery, symbolism and irony. Carver begins the story up by giving details on the weather outside than slowly comparing it to the drama going on inside his story. By using a mix of imagery and symbolism, the day gets darker as well as the story and gives off a feeling of melancholy. Though the communication is brief, Carver makes every word said important and meaningful. He uses irony throughout the entirety of “Popular Mechanics” and gets the purpose of the writing across while still adding emotion to the argument. Carver’s opens his story with a brief, yet detailed imagery describing the weather and comparing it to what’s going on with the family inside. “Early that day the …show more content…
When the argument shifts its setting by moving from the bedroom to the kitchen, Carver’s use of symbolism adds intensity to the story. Too busy with their selfishness, “In the scuffle they knocked down a flowerpot that hung behind the stove” (329). Neither parent stopped to see the broken pot, nor did any of them break focus on their fight with the child. The kitchen is usually a place where a family comes together, but here they were breaking apart at the seams. The encroaching darkness was also a large factor in all of this. In the starting paragraph, “But it was getting dark on the inside too” (328) when the arguments were light, and not physical. When we start to reach the climax of the story “The Kitchen window gave no light” (329) the light starts to get snuffed out everywhere. “In the near-dark he worked on her fisted fingers with one hand and with the other hand he gripped the screaming baby” (329). In the story’s final moments, the light is almost completely out, as is the hope for the couple to reconcile or stop destroying their