Revealing Character Flaws, Truths, in Writing: Raymond Carver and Alice Walker

Raymond Carver's "Popular Mechanics" and Alice Walker's "The Flowers" differ quite significantly in the overall themes and plot. Aside from being remarkably brief short stories, many would argue that the stories have almost nothing in common. "Popular Mechanics" tells the story of two parents neglecting a child's welfare in favor of fighting for possession of the child. The child becomes an object to the parents, and the offspring soon plays the role of an awkward status symbol rather than a cherished relation. In "The Flowers," the young and seemingly carefree character of Myop realizes the nature of her own status in the world as an African American and relinquishes her innocence to the harsh claws of reality. Myop's character bears very little resemblance to the selfish parents depicted in Carver's "Popular Mechanics." However, Carver and Walker both use somewhat similar tools to elaborate on the entire story. Both stories rely heavily on character development and recognize the importance of characterization as an element of fiction. To help develop the characters, both authors use exposition to reveal the characters through the loss of possessions, descriptions of the human body, and elaboration on natural forces.

The less-than-loving couple in "Popular Mechanics" and Myop in "The Flowers" lose something. The couple loses the baby in the scuffle for parental dominance, and Myop loses her innocence. The baby is a physical object that develops metaphorical significance as a status symbol, but Myop's innocence develops from something untouchable into a tangible symbol through the flowers that she collected on the day that she lost her innocence.

For the parents in "Popular Mechanics," the author uses exposition to highlight the characters' flaws, and the use of a baby as a possession sheds a less than flattering light on the nature of the parents. The parents act out of anger, but the refusal to use a rational or legal means to decide the fate and custody of the baby reveals human selfishness at work. The parents neglect the child's needs in favor of viewing the baby as the issue of the quarrel. The parents project anger and the self-serving need to win on a small child, and the child pays the price (German 259). To a great extent, the unwillingness of the parents to compromise alludes to a particular story in the Bible about Solomon and two mothers. In that particular story, two mothers give birth within a few days of one another, but one baby dies. The mother of the dead child then steals the other mother's baby. The true mother accuses the thief, and the case is brought before Solomon. Solomon proposes slicing the baby in half to give a fair share to each woman, but the true mother opposes the inevitable death of the child. She immediately agrees to surrender her child to the thief. Her concern for the child proves to Solomon that she is the real mother. This parental concern does not even occur to the parents in "Popular Mechanics." At one point, the mother actually says, "You're hurting the baby" (Carver 265), but she continues to tug on the infant like an unfeeling piece of rope. In the eyes of Solomon and the rest of creation, the parents in "Popular Mechanics" fail to rise to their parental potential (German 259).

Myop's innocence is lost to careless brutality at the hands of unseen characters, but the effect is still remarkably strong. Myop accidentally stumbles across the body of a dead African-American male. Even to a ten-year-old girl, the cause of death is rather obvious when Myop sees the decaying rope carelessly left on the ground by the individuals responsible for the lynching. The flowers that Myop collects throughout her small journey represent her innocence. At the sight of the lynching, Myop finds "...a wild pink rose. As she picked it to add to her bundle she noticed a raised mound, a ring, around the rose's root. It was the rotted remains of a noose, a bit of shredding plowline, now blending benignly into the soil" (Walker 405). At this point, she lays down her flowers, along with the "wild pink rose," and leaves the sight of the lynching. With her flowers, she surrenders her innocence to the horror of a death that was most likely unnecessary and undeserved. Her innocence, like the summer of her youth, fades away (Knoth). Myop willingly acknowledges the nature of her life as an African American in the south. This loss of innocence, while sad, represents growth and maturity in Myop's character. She lacks the selfishness of the parents in "Popular Mechanics," but she gathers knowledge rather than self-serving pleasure. This knowledge may do little to comfort a ten-year-old after finding the remains of a lynching, but the knowledge serves Myop well as a character developing as an African American female during hard times.

Carver and Walker both use depictions of the human body at its worst to develop characters within the two stories. For the parents in "Popular Mechanics," the sight of the baby crying, flailing, and red only serves to emphasize the ultimately cruel and selfish nature of the parents. On the other hand, the sight of a dead and decaying body in "The Flowers" only serves to emphasize the strength and knowledge gained by Myop during her loss of innocence. Yet again, Myop emerges in a significantly more flattering light than the parents in "Popular Mechanics."

The child's body in "Popular Mechanics" serves to display the damage caused by the selfish nature of its parents. The child has become an object to the parents, and the parents display minimal care for their possessions as the parents quickly transform their child into damaged goods.

The author describes the child as "red-faced and screaming" (Carver 265). Despite the vocal protests of the child, the parents continue to tug forcefully in opposing directions. At some points, the parents display what could be considered concern in any other circumstance. The parents accuse one another of hurting the baby, but both parties continue grasp and tug at the limbs and torso of the child. The author concludes the story by saying, "In this manner, the issue was decided" (Carver 265). A rather gruesome image of the child being torn in half is implied by the statement of the "issue" at hand being resolved. To the parents, the child represents the issue, and, like the child in the story involving Solomon and the two mothers, the issue is divided by both parties claiming an equal half of the child. The damage caused to the child's body yet again emphasizes the extremely careless nature of the parents' characters.

In "The Flowers," the description of the decaying body of the lynched man highlights the strength of Myop's character as she continues to mature and progress as an individual. When Myop finds the body, she actually steps into the remains of the head. The head is considered by many cultures to be a symbol of knowledge, home of the human soul, and a component of human life. Myop disrupts this decaying head as she gains the knowledge necessary to exist in the conditions presented to her by society.

The natural forces at work play a significant role in developing the characters in the two short stories. For the parents in "Popular Mechanics," the physics involved in forcibly tearing a child apart reveals an animal ferocity in the battle for dominance between the two parents. The natural forces in "The Flowers" are more subtle and help to display the contrast between the child and the developing woman in Myop.

In "Popular Mechanics," Carver goes to great lengths to describe the forces applied by the parents as they fight over the child. Carver details each pull, tug, and grasp to portray the dangerous game of tug of war being played over a child. Any reader can conclude from the strength of each pull that, inevitably, something must give. The brutal use of force rather than a legal case or a peaceful compromise shows that the parents are, at best, beasts quarreling over a prize (German 258).

Walker uses the forces of nature to create a contrast between the warm and gentle images of summer and the harsh, darker images associated with the story after Myop finds the body of the lynched man. The story begins with the bright and happy images associated with summer and a young child venturing outdoors to see the wonders of nature at work. Walker creates the carefree image of Myop walking along, tapping a stick against a fence, and collecting flowers. Myop wanders farther from home and into less comfortable territory, and the descriptions of her surroundings get progressively darker and gloomier. The very last phrase, "And the summer was over" (Walker 405), indicates the end of Myop's childhood innocence with a finality paralleled by the ending of the story. The progression from free and happy imagery to the darker imagery displays the transition of Myop's character from a child to an individual aware of her surroundings (Explicator).

Myop's character, though she bears little resemblance to the selfish characters in "Popular Mechanics," is developed in similar ways. The method might not be identical, but the general means for revealing her character bears some similarity to the parents. The aspects revealed about Myop might be more flattering, but both authors still use the forces of nature, gruesome descriptions of the human body, and loss of possessions to reveal the nature of the characters.

Resources

Carver, Raymond. "Popular Mechanics." The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed.

Michael Meyer. Seventh Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. 264-265.

German, Norman and Jack Bedell. "Physical and Social Laws in Ray Carver's 'Popular

Mechanics'." Critique 29 (1988): 257-261.

Knoth, Audrey. "Short & Sweet Collection Shows What Writers of Fiction Can Create When They are Confined to 2000 Words."

Walker, Alice. "Flowers." Reading and Writing about Short Fiction. Ed. Edward Proffitt. New

York: Harcourt, 1988. 404-405.

"Walker's 'The Flowers'." The Explicator 55 (1996).