Popular Mechanics Raymond Carver
Summary: Born in 1938 and passing away in 1988, Raymond Carver Jr. was an American poet and short story writer who helped to revive the short story in the 1980s. The man, woman, and baby don't even have names, emphasizing their status as universal archetypes; we aren't told specifically what happens to the baby, so it's possible that one parent was able to successfully wrest the baby from the other; however, the parents have already knocked down a flowerpot, which is a foreshadowing that doesn't bode well for the baby. Therefore, it appears most likely that the infant was slain. In addition, the words "manner," "issue," and "was decided" have a clinical, impersonal feel, focusing once more on the mechanics of the scenario rather than the people involved, but the reader won't be able to avoid noticing that if these are the mechanics we choose to employ, real people do get hurt; the struggle over a baby reminds us of the story of the Judgment of Solomon in the book of 1 King in the Bible; in this story, two women fighting over The phony mother accepts Solomon's offer to divide the infant in two, but the real mother replies she would rather see her child misplaced than dead.
The baby changes from being referred to as "him" to an object throughout the narrative. At first, it seems that the father only wants a picture of the child, but when the mother sees it, she takes it away. Angered by her taking the picture, he escalates his demands and insists on taking the actual child. They even argue about whether they are hurting the child, but they seem less concerned with the truth of their claims than with the chance to accuse one another.