The fact that Carver wrote ‘A Small, Good Thing’ proves to us that he had a very specific purpose in mind when writing ‘The Bath’. To what extent do you agree?

- I strongly agree/agree/disagree/strongly disagree

- The reason why I feel this particular way is because...

- What can you see in terms of a connection between style of writing and purpose?

Remember, ‘A Small, Good Thing’ is a much richer, almost more traditional and fully formed version of ‘The Bath’. The core stories are identical, the styles are much different. Part of your answer should probably deal with the fact that Carver is clearly able to write in both ways, so there must be a reason as to why he chose to write ‘The Bath’ in the way that he did.

Technique

Minimalism

This is Carver’s core technique. It changes as his writing grows, he becomes less of a minimalist. But in ‘The Bath’ and across What We Talk About When We Talk About Love he writes in this exact same style.

It was a literary revelation when it came out. No one was writing such whittled down prose. And what we’ll hopefully get to is how Carver’s style and form can be seen as a technique in itself. How his style represents his intentions as an artist.

Technique

Adjectives and adverbs

You will struggle to find them in Carver’s writing. ‘The Bath’ is, to an extent, can be best discussed in terms of what it lacks and how that challenges traditional forms of writing.

My question is: what is the place of the adjective? what is the place of the adverb? If we can figure out why authors use them, then perhaps we can figure out why Carver doesn’t.

Technique

Adjectives and adverbs

The adjective or adverb is essentially a positioning device. If we think about it, the decision as to the adjective or adverb is made by the author. They determine the quality of the movement, they determine the attitude of the object. And so it becomes a device by which the author/narrator takes control of the world away from us and determines it for us.

By taking these crutches away, it frustrates our expectation of story. Detail isn’t being provided for us. We are, to an extent, being abandoned by the author, left without them to guide us through the world.

Technique

Sentence Structure

Carver routinely repeats sentence structures. For example, he uses the structure “The [pronoun]...”, e.g. “The husband...”, “The birthday boy...”, etc.

Again, we need to think first about why authors vary their sentence structures? Why do they work with complex sentence arrangements? Why do they put verbs at the beginning of sentences? Or adjectives?

Technique

Sentence Structure

It’s something around the desire to lift life out of reality and into the world of representation and into something poetic. My argument would be that elaborate sentence structures, variations, etc. tend to work as methods of re-presentation. They have nothing to do with the event/experience itself, but have more to do with how the narrator/author wants those experiences to be understood. Again, this is a positioning device that Carver takes away from us. We can’t be reliant on the author to tell us how to feel or how to see an event.

Technique

The Proliferation of Pronouns

We discussed the fact that there are very few names in ‘The Bath’. We do learn both Ann’s name and Scotty’s name, but they are very rarely used in the text. Mostly, what we are given are pronouns - “he”, “she”, “the birthday boy”, etc.

What does naming something do? What is the difference between calling something by their name and calling something ‘it’ or ‘he’ or ‘she’?

Technique

The Proliferation of Pronouns

We discussed the fact that there are very few names in ‘The Bath’. We do learn both Ann’s name and Scotty’s name, but they are very rarely used in the text. Mostly, what we are given are pronouns - “he”, “she”, “the birthday boy”, etc.

What does naming something do? What is the difference between calling something by their name and calling something ‘it’ or ‘he’ or ‘she’?

Technique

The Proliferation of Pronouns

I think this has something to do with Sartre’s quote:“To name something is to take it out of the well of the unmediated and bring it up to the level of notice.”

Carver barely brings figures out of the unmediated. Instead he leaves them sort of half in a haze of identity, they are never really clear for us as readers as represented by their barely formed existences as proper nouns. I think what this does is make the experiences they have less individual and more universal. They become symbolic of all humanity, rather than just particular individuals. Naming them gives the figure individuality, peculiarity, which perhaps gets in the way of theme.

Technique

Point of View

What is the difference between a first person narrator and a third person narrator in terms of the tone they bring to a text?

Are there different kinds of third person narrator available to writers?

Technique

Point of View

Carver’s narrator is about as cold and distant as a narrator can be. And this is constructed by those language choices we discussed earlier. The lack of adjectives, the repeated sentence structures, the pronouns, etc. leave us with a narrator who is completely disconnected from the story being told. It is to the point where the narrator offers barely any insight into the psychology of the characters.

What’s even better is that Carver’s narrator seems to know much more than he is willing to tell. There is insight into psychology, but there seems to be a refusal to offer that to us. The narrator comes to be defined by his desire to withhold.

To Wrap Up...

How does Carver’s use of technique here illustrate his connection to Ford as a writer interested in uncertainty, yet distinguish him as having a very particular view on that uncertainty?