Reading Response: Week 8-1

I enjoyed reading “Popular Mechanics” and the more I read it, the more awesome it became. The ending was subtle but very powerful. The first time I read it, I was in denial of the baby’s death. I made myself believe that the man took the baby away. But after I read it a few times, there was no way I could deny the ending. I think it’s great that such a short piece of writing could have such an effect. I liked how Carver didn’t use names of characters, I didn’t notice it so much at first but it definitely was a good way to make reader’s concentrate more on the actions than the people. I also liked that he used a lot of short sentences; I felt that made the actions stand out more. It was also interesting that he didn’t use quotation marks for the parts of dialogue. I think that’s another technique he used to stress on the actions. It’s a great short story overall and I am so glad Professor Ellison introduced us to it.