"Popular Mechanics"
Raymond Carver
I can say confidently that this has been the most confusing piece of literature for me this year. From what I can surmise, the story revolves around a feud between a separating couple over ownership of the child. Apparent to anyone who is familiar with Solomon, "Popular Mechanics" resembles the legal battle between two women over legal guardianship over a baby, but neither parent in this story has the love to allow the other to raise the child. Nevertheless, I cannot figure out what mechanics have to do with babies torn asunder.
What I can analyze is that the baby serves as a prominent symbol for the couple's happiness. Although at first I believed the baby to symbolize the possessions, the mother didn't care what the father took as long as he left and neither cared that their fights destroyed the pot in the kitchen. Moreover, their disregard for the baby's crying during the fight proves that neither parent desired guardianship for the child's future. In fact, the baby is only ever referred to as an inanimate object: "She would have it, this baby," (Carver).
All the evidence suggests that the parents are fighting for something only they can have. A child can represent many things for his or her parents: love, future, success as a person. Therefore, each parent was fighting for what the child represented in order to withhold those things from the other. Unfortunately, the baby's role as symbol revealed a troubling theme: when parents quarrel over a child, it is the child, not the losing legal party, that pays the ultimate price.
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