Man Similarities With A Typical Carver Story example essay topic

By Looking Closely At Language, Content, Style Show How Fat Can Be Considered A Typical Carve Sto When answering this question one must first consider what a typical Raymond Carve story is. After reading several of his other short stories you can see a pattern developing. His minimalist style creates a sense of detachment from the story and its characters, however at the same time he is still able to take you through a range of emotions. A typical Carver story certainly involves colloquial and easy to understand language. However at the base and beneath this are very intricate and detailed story lines that often have underlying hidden messages, these messages are the readers job to uncover.

The simplicity of Raymond Carver's characters makes them complex. Though this is an ironic statement as irony is part of Raymond Carvers writing. The identities of his characters are simple and ordinary, but the irony of the stories makes them strange. Most of Carver's characters are similar: lonely personalities without the ability to express themselves, struggling with the difficulties of the daily life and moving from job to job. There is a limit to what they can bear, and even an insignificant event can crush their lives. Their ordinary lives suddenly seam not so ordinary; they become strange.

The settings are semi-industrial American towns that make the reader depressed and anxious. The plots of his stories are also comparable: the action begins with ordinary lives, which somehow collapse into darkness, depression and panic. The world portrayed by the author is without religion, politics, culture or society. The reader is left with mixed feelings: despair and thankfulness. Our lives may be bad, but compared to those described in his stories they seem heavenly. If you compare Fat to thi analogy then one can certainly see similarities.

Language wise, this story is simple with no complex metaphors etc, Carver does not need these to create the picture he wants. His simple writing style still can bring you through a range of emotions. At the beginning of the story I found it humorous, This man is the fattest person I have ever seen. This description of the man can be interpreted as entertaining. However as the story develops, this aspect of humour soon changes into a more serious matter as one begins to feel sympathy for the man. The detailed description of what he eats, how he eats and peoples remarks to his weight filled me with great compassion, Hes really a fatty.

The language used by the characters to describe the man can be harsh and cruel reinforcing your sympathy for him. In terms of style the use of the first person narrative in this story allows Carver to step back and have less of an interpretive influence. A first person narrative does not allow Carver to have such control over the characters. The gives a greater sense of realism. Many of Carvers stories are focused on one character describing events. In Fat it is based around this women giving her perception of proceedings, I say and a feeling comes over me The women does not describe what this feeling is just that she has one.

This adds a twist to the story as the women is not just concerned by this mans weight but by something else. It is our job as the reader to dissect this. Also at the beginning of the story it is a very laid back and relaxed style, however as the story progresses your emotions start to surface and you are trying to figure out what is really going on. This is Carver style being able to sublet ely flips the whole story over bringing up many surprises along the way. As with many other of his short stories, Carver will describe something so far and just at the point where everything is about to be uncovered he stops, leaving the rest to our imagination. At the end of a Carver story you feel baffled as such a simple event can be turned around into something life changing for a character.

If one looks at the general content of the story then you see several parallels emerging with his other stories. Fat starts off with an ordinary person, with an ordinary job in a ordinary situation. However Carvers brilliance is how he converts these seemingly dull situations into a life changing experience for the character. If one looks at Fat then the ending is a complete bafflement for the reader, My life is going to change. I feel it. In Fat there is no real story line as with his other stories, but its ending exemplifies Carvers minimalist style, keeping everything simple on the surface, but underneath you can see that something else is going on.

In conclusion Fat has man similarities with a typical Carver story. With its minimalist style and dull ordinary people living their lives, however these lives can be changed dramatically by one person or one event. As a result the lives can go into depression or do the opposite and flourish.