Dark humor is a tool prominent in many of Raymond Carver’s stories. One can see dark humor in works such as “Careful”, “A Small Good Thing”, “Whoever was using this bed”, and to some extent “Cathedral”. Nevertheless, dark humor is often used within Carver stories without it becoming the main emphasis, though some of his subject matter remains gloomy. Several stories, however, such as “A Small Good Thing”, and “Whoever was using this bed”, use dark humor as a main feature of the plot. These two stories coincide in a number of other ways as well, but primarily around Carver’s specific implementation and use of dark humor. Both stories show a commonality in how dark humor ensues, using the objective correlative of a telephone as its main outlet. …show more content…
It is used frequently in literature, film, and other outlets of comedy, such as stand-up. In literature, it is used in a number of ways, predominantly either to explore vulgar issues, provoke serious thought, or to remind of the mortality of its characters. The main point of commonality seen between “A Small Good Thing”, and “Whoever Was Using This Bed” is this element of dark humor. “A Small Good Thing” uses dark humor in the character of the baker, who inadvertently reminds the couple, Howard and Ann, of their dying son, Scotty. In his constant calls, he asks the couple if they had forgotten their “Scotty” cake, reminding them of the tragedy they face. In “Whoever was using this bed” Carver shows dark humor in the occurrence of the drunk woman calling the couple in the middle of the night, requesting to speak to a “Bud”, which prompts a late night morbid discussion between the narrator, Jack, and his wife, Iris. Thus, in both of these short stories, Carver uses dark humor to discuss the mortality of the …show more content…
Though “A Small Good Thing” ends in an epiphany, both stories have a resolution that falls back to the implementation of dark humor. In addition, both stories are alike simply in that they have a clear resolution. Many times, Carver will simply end the story with something for the reader to interpret, and no true, fully explained, resolution. However, in “A Small Good Thing” the couple, Ann and Howard, meet the baker that was unknowingly causing them strife through his calls, and speak to him. They discuss his life and his food. In “Whoever was using this bed”, the couple, after Jack comes home from work, finally resolve their discussion, and promise never to talk of it again. When the woman calls, looking for Bud, the wife unplugs the phone, signifying the end of their uneasy and morbid topic of discussion. In “A Small Good Thing” their talk with the baker symbolizes something similar, a resolution to strife, a final security. Either way, each story provides a clear break from the dark humor plot into
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” utilize character responsibilities to create a sinister plot. For Hawthorne, protagonist Young Goodman Brown must leave his wife at home while he partakes in a night journey. For Poe, ancillary Fortunato covets a pretentious manner towards his wine tasting skills, and after being ‘challenged’ decides to prove his expertise by sampling Amontillado. Hawthorne and Poe showcase a theme of darkness but differ in their approach to the setting, characters, and fate of entrapment.
“Cathedral,” a short story written by Raymond Carver, presents an intriguing story of an ignorant man 's lesson. During this story, Carver 's working class characters are crushed by broken marriages, financial issues, and fulfilling jobs, but they are frequently unable to understand or communicate their own sufferings. However, the main story consists of the narrator, known as “Bub,” facing an internal conflict about a blind man named Robert staying the night in his home. Regardless of the fact that this blind man is his wife 's long time friend, the narrator cannot find himself comfortable with such an idea because of his extreme prejudices. Although, despite the narrator’s conflict he finds himself connecting to Robert on a more personal
For a writer, stylistic devices are key to impacting a reader through one’s writing and conveying a theme. For example, Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates use of these stylistic techniques in his short stories “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The former story is about a party held by a wealthy prince hiding from a fatal disease, known as the Red Death. However, a personified Red Death kills all of the partygoers. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is about a man who visits his mentally ill childhood companion, Roderick Usher. At the climax of the story, Roderick’s twin sister, Madeline, murders him after he buries her alive. Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories employ the stylistic decisions of symbolism, dream-like imagery, and tone to affect the reader by furthering understanding of the theme and setting and evoking emotion in readers.
Now we have examined three stories written by two well distinguished authors known for their Southern Gothic Literature and found many similarities in each story. Each story has its form of the grotesque we have Miss Emily, the Misfit, the Grandmother, and Marley Pointer and let’s not leave out Helga. The characters of each story has some form of cringe inducing quality, meaning some kind of attitude about themselves that gets under ones skin. Then as we can see from the stories they all are Southern based each story is in a Southern setting. And the final thing we look for in Southern Gothic literature is tragedy which all three stories possessed.
In William Faulkner’s world, what is often portrayed as morbid can also be taken as tongue-in-cheek by the reader, especially when it comes to his most beloved and troubled clan, the Bundren family. Throughout the novel, the Bundrens are beset by numerous, unfortunate burdens on their journey to bury their nine-day-dead mother, most of which find the reader both wincing and giggling at the same time. I will be using the new critical approach for my paper, which treated literary texts as autonomous and divorced from historical context in order to bring the focus of literary studies back to the analysis of the texts. New Critics also intended to exclude the reader's response, the author's intention, cultural and historical frameworks, and moralistic bias from their analysis. Through New Critical analysis, readers can discern how different themes in the work come together to complete the novel as a whole; in this case, the theme of black comedy plays a large role in controlling the otherwise dark moments in the novel, creating a spectrum of emotion that completes the experience of the reader. By implementing humor into the macabre circumstances of the treatment of Addie’s body, Anse using his wife’s funeral for personal gain, and Dewey Dell’s quest for an abortion, Faulkner uses black comedy in order to lighten the theme of death in his Southern Gothic literature.
Edgar Allan Poe was an excellent horror, suspense, and mystery writer of the eighteenth century. His use of literary devices and different literary techniques makes this writer important to American literature. This paper will show how Edgar Allan Poe has made an impact on Society and American literature as well as how Edgar Allan Poe developed the short story. I will also discuss and analyze some of his works and techniques he uses in his short stories and poems.
Confusion, fear, wonderment, shock and horror—just a few words of many to describe the emotions Edgar Allen Poe’s tales are known to elicit. Critics say that Poe was well ahead of his time in his ability to examine the human psyche and create characters that really make the reader think, if not recoil in horror. One particular theme Poe quite often repeats is that of madness and insanity. He is known for his wonderfully twisted tales involving such characters as an unstable brother with a mysterious ailment (The Fall of the House of Usher,) a methodical murderer (The Tell-Tale Heart,) and an enraged, revenge seeking, homicidal maniac (The Cask of Amontillado.) Through analysis and citations of the tales listed above, in conjunction with the opinions of literary critics, the reader will clearly see the oft repeated theme of madness and insanity hard at work.
Regardless of what people think Poe did or did not do, he did change the face of literature through some of his short horror stories. Two of his stories that were discussed within this paper are, “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Within these two stories Edgar Allan Poe has given it a horror reading, with descriptive places, such as “wet and gloomy” and “evil atmosphere.” Besides the stories giving off a sense of horror, they also contain characters with disturbed psyches. The character with a disturbed psyche in “The Cask of Amontillado” was Montressor. He got revenge by murdering Fortunato, who ruined his self-esteem. He bricked Fortunato in alive in the catacombs and walked away feeling pity on him but knowing what he had done and having to live with it. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Roderick Usher was distracted by his thoughts knowing he buried his sister alive within the vaults of their home. She got out of the encasement, Roderick and the narrator placed her in, and attacked Roderick in her bloody
... words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places.” n each of these stories, Carver makes those words take reader to the same scene twice and end up in a new place each time. He is a master wordsmith and the uniqueness that is 'The Bath' and 'A Small Good Thing' is a masterpiece.
In the beginning of the short story O’Connor’s use of a dark and humorous tone allows the audience to feel pity for the grandmother. The first sentence, “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida” shows the reader the family does not worry about the grandmother’s
Raymond Carver’s short story, “Cathedral,” portrays a story in which many in today’s society can relate. We are introduced from the first sentence of the story to a man that seems to be perturbed and agitated. As readers, we are initially unsure to the reasoning’s behind the man’s discomfort. The man, who seems to be a direct portrayal of Raymond Carver himself, shows his ignorance by stereotyping a blind man by the name of Robert, who has come to stay with he and his wife. From the very beginning, Carver shows his detest for Robert but over the course of the story eases into comfort with him and in the end is taught a lesson from the very one he despised.
Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, sets a tone that is dark, gloomy, and threatening. His inclusion of highly descriptive words and various forms of figurative language enhance the story’s evil nature, giving the house and its inhabitants eerie and “supernatural” qualities. Poe’s effective use of personification, symbolism, foreshadowing, and doubling create a morbid tale leading to, and ultimately causing, the fall of (the house of) Usher.
Raymond Carver uses strategic dialogue and point-of-view to illuminate the themes of his stories. After reading “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” and “ Cathedral” the reader is able to mend each piece of work together and understand how Carver creates his short stories.
Flannery O’Connor and Raymond Carver wrote the short stories, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “The Cathedral,” which both showcase personas of conflictedness in two different time frames. Although one can draw many interpretations from these two stories, written in 1953 and 1983, respectively, one might refute many impracticalities associated with the nostalgic state of many of these characters, who possess characteristics that would be considered archaic and imbecilic. Racists and discriminatory viewpoints circumnavigate the minds of several characters, who can’t seem to come to terms with modern ideologues. The prevailing tendencies of these characters could very possibly cause some anguish to the readers, who would struggle to make sense of the ignorance displayed in these two stories. Many critics have suggested their own interpretations of the stories, and what they reveal to us about human nature.
First it is shown by the description of the baker’s apron, which is “a heavy thing with loops that went under his arms and around his back and then crossed in front again where they were tied in a very thick knot”(Carver). Such detailed description usually catches the reader 's eyes and leaves a vivid image. Then, the reader will be wondering why is the baker wearing such an awkwardly designed apron. It is strange about this apron. Carver is using the strangeness of the apron to bring out the suspenseful character of the baker, paving the road to the suspenseful ending. Furthermore, when Scotty is hit by the car, his friend is still standing there holding his potato chips, wondering “if he should finish the rest or continue on to school”(Carver). It is the extremely unusual reaction when his friend has just gotten into an accident. His eccentric tranquility implies adds more weirdness to the story. In addition, Scotty’s mother’s reaction is totally the opposite of what a real life person would do. Instead of screaming and taking her son to the hospital immediately, the mother calmly sits on the sofa with Scotty and kindly watches him falling asleep. Lastly, during the hospital scene, despite the doctor’s perfunctory console, the parents take the turn to go home and take showers, which seems absolutely irrelevant to their son’s unknown injury(Carver). In addition, they both receive strange phone calls that are possibly from the baker(Carver). Instead of explaining his purpose of making the call, the baker’s language is succinct and almost in a scary tone. All these eccentric settings add more mysterious environment to the story, giving the reader opportunity to interpret the story in their own