A Small Good Thing

“Without looking, the birthday boy stepped off the curb at an intersection and was immediately knocked down by a car.”

Fate intervenes in the Weiss family’s harmonious lives. A hit-and-run driver knocks Scotty over and then drives off upon seeing the boy come to. However, the narrator also emphasizes Scotty’s lack of attention. Certainly, young children are prone to underestimating the dangers of the roads. However, this clause could also signal the Weisses’ privilege that Carver may be lampooning in his story.

“Until now, his life had gone smoothly and to his satisfaction—college, marriage, another year of college for the advanced degree in business, a junior partnership in an investment firm. Fatherhood. He was happy and, so far, lucky—he knew that.”

Here, Howard reflects more explicitly on his and his family’s good fortune. This important characterizing moment says a lot about Howard’s social class and perhaps the accompanying expectations—or sense of entitlement.

“I want to talk to the doctor. I don’t think he should keep sleeping like this. I don’t think that’s a good sign.”

Worrying about Scotty, Ann shrugs off Howard’s suggestion to go home and rest. This portrayal of Ann plays into gender expectations at the time—that she’s overwrought or hysterical. However, a mother’s fundamental instinct is to protect and advocate for her child, even if in doing so she initially provokes skepticism from the men around her.

“Dr. Francis came in and shook hands with Howard, though they had just seen each other a few hours before.”

The fact that the two men already greeted each other changes the nature of their handshake. They clearly feel a kinship—most obviously based on gender. However, recognition of a similar class or even racial identity may also be at play here.

“You try not to worry, little mother. Believe me, we’re doing all that we can be done. It’s just a question of a little more time now.”

This comment from Dr. Francis exemplifies how good dialog effectively reveals character. The doctor’s use of a diminutive toward Ann immediately paints him as paternalistic—and, by today’s standards, sexist. The comment has a storytelling function too, though, inviting questions about what other prejudices Dr. Francis might have and—if he’s so sure of his station in regard to Ann—what else he might miscalculate or overlook. This insight into Dr. Francis’s character builds suspense over Scotty’s prognosis.

“For the first time, [Ann] felt they were together in it, this trouble. She realized with a start that, until now, it had only been happening to her and to Scotty. She hadn’t let Howard into it, though he was there and needed all along. She felt glad to be his wife.”

This reflection comes after Ann withdraws her hand from Howard’s and asks him to pray for Scotty. When he says that he has, Ann chides herself for not sufficiently accommodating her husband in what she’s feeling. This seems like a self-abnegating way to grieve that demonstrates how Ann has been socialized to perform a specific role as a woman—one in which she should always put her husband and son first. It reveals that she has internalized male condescension and paternalism.

“The orderlies stood at either end of the gurney without saying anything, though once one of the men made a comment to the other in their own language, and the other man nodded in response.”

While this passage raises a legitimate question about whether Carver needed to make these incidental characters non-white, this moment contributes to the sense of impending doom for Scotty. That the orderlies seem to know more about his condition than they—or the doctors—let on signals the fear that Ann must be feeling and the unknown that medicine represents to most laypeople.

“[Ann] stood at the window with her hands gripping the sill, and knew in her heart that they were into something now, something hard. She was afraid, and her teeth began to chatter until she tightened her jaws.”

Standing at the darkened hospital window, Ann wishes that she were a woman she sees in the parking lot—that she was anyone but herself—and that Scotty was well. This lyrical moment not only reveals Ann’s anguish but might be somewhat moralizing: The situation has rocked Ann’s superficially perfect world. Neither being a doting mother and wife nor her family’s privileged social status has been enough to protect her.

“‘I couldn’t eat anything,’ Ann said.”

Carver starts to build the link between satiation and well-being. He reveals Ann and Howard’s hunger so that the baker’s ending gesture lands emotionally. In addition, this austere attitude reinforces Ann and Howard’s characterization as probable white, Anglo-Saxon protestants—the kind of Americans that the nation’s mythology tends to ensure won’t ever know hunger. Blind spots in characters, though, only add to a story’s sense of drama; they reveal more about the characters than the characters themselves know.

“Ann wanted to talk more with these people who were in the same kind of waiting she was in. She was afraid, and they were afraid. They had that in common […] Yet she didn’t know how to begin. She stood looking at them without saying anything more.”

This passage is the crux of the story’s window on race. Having encountered an anxious Black family, Ann cannot bridge the gap to them. This relates to the way she considers them “these people”—the kind of demonstrative construction that can feel charged in this context. Consider how differently the sentence would read with a term like “the family” instead. Ann, though, seems to draw a rigid line between two types of people in her thinking—and then wonders why they might not offer her common ground on which to meet.

“‘Scotty,’ the man’s voice said. ‘It’s about Scotty, yes. It has to do with Scotty, that problem. Have you forgotten about Scotty?’ the man said. Then he hung up.”

This passage exemplifies the miscommunication between the Weisses and the baker. By this point, the baker seems cruel in his persistence and cryptic messaging. However, he has no knowledge of Scotty’s accident, and for all their agitation, neither Ann nor Howard thinks to speak transparently to him. Their expectation that he be polite or initiate an explanation (despite his being unaware of their predicament), plays into a sense that the Weisses are relatively entitled.

“The boy looked at them, but without any sign of recognition. Then his mouth opened, his eyes scrunched closed, and he howled until he had no more air in his lungs.”

This image from Scotty’s grisly death is remarkable for its stylistic restraint. The verbs—not extraneous descriptors—do the hard work here. This passage delivers a jolt because of Carver’s unsentimental writing style.

“[Howard] took hold of the bicycle awkwardly so that it leaned against his chest. He held it, the rubber pedal sticking into his chest. He gave the wheel a turn.”

This image of grief is more poignant because of its concreteness. The key here is how uncomfortable this position must be for Howard and how he persists with it nonetheless. The physical discomfort is insignificant next to Howard’s emotional suffering.