Carver Story Analysis

After reading Raymond Carver’s short story “The Bath,” I was admittedly disappointed by the overall dryness of the tale. The story’s lack of detail made it difficult for me to grow attached to the characters and it also made it difficult for me to fully understand their motives in places. By the time I reached the end, I found myself wanting something more. It felt incomplete. I could see what Carver was trying to do with the ending, but it didn’t have quite the impact on me that I felt it should have had.
But when I began to read “A Small, Good Thing,” I was quite happy to discover that it was an expanded, more fully fleshed-out version of the story I had just read. Scenes which had been unclear to me the first time around (for instance, the part where Anne is watching from the window the woman in the coat walking to her car) suddenly made sense and contributed to my sympathy for the characters involved. Perhaps the greatest improvement made over the stripped-down version, other than the culminating confrontation with the baker, is the greater depth Carver lends the boy’s parents. Many subtle details like Howard crouching down beside Scotty’s bicycle and clutching it to his chest add immensely to the sorrowful tone of the story.
The end of the story works particularly well for two reasons. One is the cathartic relief the parents receive (and the reader, vicariously) after the trauma of the loss of their son. The other reason is the reversal of character seen in the baker. The story suddenly becomes about more than just the isolated incident involving Scotty’s death. It opens up to reveal the humanity and the suffering of the baker, this outside character who previously appeared to be little more than a heartless bastard, and so the tale turns into a commentary on the universality of suffering and how the smallest and simplest of things can ease the suffering of people in general. There may be no genuine cure, but there is at least relief. The parents find comfort in the warmth and the goodness of the baked products and more importantly in hearing the baker’s own story, and the baker of course finds relief in having someone to share his story with––just as Anne had earlier wished to share her story with the other family in the waiting room. This uplifting turn makes for a far more satisfying finish than that seen in “The Bath,” which reads like the punchline to a horror short.