Carver Raymond Carver\'s Greater Maturity of Symbolism

Carver

Raymond Carver's greater maturity of symbolism and theme in "A Small, Good Thing," as opposed to "The Bath"

Both the short stories "The Bath" by Raymond Carver and "A Small, Good Thing," are tales about sudden, tragic and meaningless death. However, while superficially the two stories may revolve around similar themes and plot devices, the longer, latter tale of "A Small, Good, Thing," is ultimately the more thematically redemptive of the two and the more mature expression of a holistic philosophy about life and healing than is the more sparse and harsher "The Bath."

The similarities between the two tales on their surface in terms of literal meaning and plot seem obvious. Beyond the concrete events that the tales tell as they unfold, both stories concern the apparently arbitrary methods by which individuals are taken away from those who care for them. A child can die right before his birthday, despite the care the mother lavishes upon the preparations for the child's cake and party. The doctors in charge of the child's medical care can be assured of the child's survival, and tell the parents that his injury is minor, yet because of an odd way that a car hits the child's fragile body, the doctors are proven wrong by the child's eventual demise over the course of the story.

However, the thematic structure and additional depth of the tale "A Small, Good Thing" is provided by the all-important birthday cake of the child. This presence of the cake allows the subsequent redemptive aspect of the end of the tale. The baking of the cake gives an added significance to both the life of the baker and the life of the mother who ordered the cake for her child. In the story of "The Bath," death comes without any intrinsic meaning or saving significance for the participants involved. However, by ordering a cake for her child, the mother of "A Small, Good Thing," creates a relationship, albeit initially a negative one, between herself and the baker of her child's birthday cake. As the boy struggles for life, the baker grows increasingly irate at the unpaid, stale cake. Soon it becomes clear that the child will not see another birthday, to the reader if not the mother of the dying boy and the baker. Significantly, the cake depicts a spaceship striking off for the moon, into the outer space and unknown limits that the child's soul, presumably, may or may not head for -- the author does not suggest this one way or the other. What is clear is that the cake takes on significance, symbolically, that is initially grotesque but is rendered meaningful because of the baker's willingness to feed the needy woman Ann at the end of the store.

What is also clear at the end of "A Small, Good Thing," that does not transpire at the end of "The Bath" is that the grieving parent Ann has experienced a kind of epiphany. Unable to move on, the baker's harassing phone calls force the mother to confront the man as a human being, rather than a lonely and demanding voice on the phone. The baker realizes that his phone calls have an unintended effect upon two individuals whose lives he did not really know or understand, individuals whom he thought he was merely transacting with on a commercial level. The mother of the dead boy understands that the baker meant no harm to her. The baker was merely attempting to collect on a debt.