Raymond+Carver

Sorry for posting these questions so late that I doubt they will be of much use before class – hopefully they might still help discussion a bit.

1. On 377, the mother in “Small, Good Thing” wonders about the life of the baker, something he does not seem to do with her – what do you think/make of this curiosity about the lives of others?

2. I think the story gives an interesting portrayal of medicine – the nurses and doctors do not seem to know what is wrong. I think it intriguing to think about how many people expect a precision and knowledge about the field of medicine that we lack in most fields. People expect doctors and nurses to know everything all the time, when many times they don’t – one is expected to be perfect, which would be a challenging thing. The line that most made me think of this idea is on 383, when the doctor tells the parents that, “I’m certain his condition will show improvement by morning. I’m betting that it will.” The second sentence calls the first into doubt, no?

3. I like the moment at the bottom of 384, when the mother realizes that she is suffering with her husband instead of just her suffering alone. I like that, but I also like the desire to be alone expressed in the first full paragraph on 389.

4. On 397, the mother thinks, “She wanted the words to be her own.” I think it hard in situations like this one not to rely on clichés, to say the same things that everyone else says.

5. On 404, the baker says that he is sorry, that he has forgotten how to be a different kind of human being than he is now, and asks for forgiveness. Why is the baker like he is now? Do you think many people are like him? He claims to not be evil – how does one become/be evil? Does it require you to do anything, or maybe by us doing nothing do we become that way?

6. I do not have many questions here for what is a rather long story. I would say I like it even more than “Cathedral,” and I like “Cathedral” a great deal, but I cannot really explain what it is about the story that causes me to love it so. I think part of it is the way the title comes around – I recall being blindsided and devastated by the story the first time I read it, and some of that remains each time I reread it. One classmate of yours (who will be unable to make it tonight) suggested it was an anticlimactic ending, and I could agree, but it still overwhelms me. I love the little moment in this story that ends, just as “Cathedral” is a series of small moments. There is something about the compression in a great short story that I really love – I feel like both of these Carver stories are great examples of that tightly focused drama. What story did you like more? Why?

7. What do you think of the relationship between the narrator and his wife in “Cathedral”? It always amuses me the way that he talks about her always trying to write a poem (357). What is it about her relationship with the blind man that bothers him so? What about his thoughts from the bottom of 364 to 365 (as a tangent there – when you look at a picture you’re in, who do you look for first?)?

8. The narrator’s reflections on Robert and his late wife again demonstrate a character imagining the life of another (as with the thought of the mother for the baker in “Good Thing”), however erroneous his speculation. He feels sorry for the blind man that he could never see his wife, and then thinks of the wife and feels sorry for her that she could “never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one” (360). What do you think of his thoughts?

9. At the bottom of 368 – “’I’m glad for the company.’ And I guess I was. Every night I smoked dope and stayed up as long as I could before I fell asleep.” Why do you think the narrator does that? What type of person are you – morning person or a night person?

10. “. . . men wanted to be close to God. In those olden days, God was an important part of everyone’s life” (371-2). Do you agree?

11. I love, love, love the conclusion of the story – “My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything. ‘It’s really something,’ I said” (375). What do you make of that ending?