NOTE: The Final Project assignment is the post below this one, though I think everyone was in class on Wednesday and received the hard copy. But it's here if you need it!
Answer TWO of the following:
Q1: Why might the story, "A Small, Good Thing" be a meditation on the nature of evil? As the baker says, "I'm not an evil man, I don't think. Not evil, like you said on the phone" (404). Why might something as small as a $16 cake (though $16 back then was a lot more than it is today!) turn something 'evil,' or at least malicious? Is the explanation of evil often this simple?
Q2: Throughout the visit with his wife's friend in "Cathedral," the narrator is waging a silent war with his wife. As he tells us, "My wife looked at me with irritation. She was heading toward a boil" (365). Why is egging her on throughout? What makes him feel annoyed or threatened by her friend's visit?
Q3: In the same story, the narrator admits that after drawing the picture of the cathedral with the blind man, "It was like nothing else in my life up to now" (374). Why is this moment an almost religious experience for him? What is it exactly that he's responding to?
Q4: Obviously, "A Small, Good Thing" is a story about unthinkable grief, the moment your life changes forever, especially when before it had been rather simple and unremarkable. What do you feel is the most important thing Carver tries to communicate about the nature of the couple's grief? Though we get relatively little of their inner thoughts, what makes this experience so real and insightful?
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