"Popular Mechanics" (LBR)

“Popular Mechanics”

By: Raymond Carver

“Son of a bitch! I’m glad you’re leaving!” but she really wasn’t, was she? “Popular Mechanics” is a story about a divorcing couple who put too much strain on their child until they lose it. As it is evident in lines 11-12, infidelity on the husband’s part may be the cause of their split. The action of not being able to look at your partner in the face indicates that he has an unknown guilt that the author leaves to the reader’s interpretation. Carver also is sly in adding “pushed (line 41)” and “would not let go (line 53)” to show the husband pushing the relationship away and the wife wanting to hold on to it. Another indication of infidelity is the wife’s reluctance to not let go of their marriage, symbolized by their child. Destruction is also eluded by the weather. As it is stated in How to Read Literature like a Professor “snow symbolizes death” and the transition from the pure white snow to dirty water indicates the destruction to come. Raymond Carver combines infidelity, divorce, and destruction to convey the theme.

Carver develops the theme as the commonality of divorce in today’s society and that it is always the children that suffer. Anyone coming from a broken home knows this to be true. When a couple splits up the children are put in the middle of arguments, everything becomes a hassle and the simplest of tasks, such as holidays, become unbearable. The author uses few symbols to validate the theme such as the infant, which is the most significant symbol to the theme, representing all the children who are put in between their parents and are eventually lost. Another symbol would be the absence of names in the story. The author chooses not to add names to any of the characters to make them relate to all of society.