ABSTRACT
If unreliable narration is a key technique in Carver, the writer’s ability to find art in the “mundane” or “everyday occurrences” (Kinder qtd. in Halpert 37) is probably his most important talent. In a frequently quoted passage, Carver asserts, “It’s possible … to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things … with immense, even startling power” (Fires 15). Commenting on this effect, Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory observe, “In Carver’s fiction things … are more than they appear to be, for often commonplace objects … become transformed … from realistic props in realistic stories to powerful, emotionally charged signifiers in and of themselves.” The “seemingly banal conversations” between characters are “typically endowed with unspoken intensity and meaning” beyond their literal signification (98). Similarly Nicholas O’Connell observes, “Carver writes with uncommon power about commonplace things and commonplace people. His short stories operate by implication; every word, every gesture is fraught with significance” (133).
