Little Things

When reading Little Things by Raymond Carver it is very short, but to the point. In the beginning of the story Carver talks about the snow and how it melts and turns dirty and dark. The first time reading it I did not think anything of this, but when reading it a second time I wondered if he used the weather and snow to symbolize what was going to happen in the story. The snow is said to be pure, and we can conclude that there marriage once had been this pure thing. Then it says that the snow started to melt and turn dirty. This I thought showed a foreshadowing on there relationship turning dark.
We are brought into the story with the man packing up his suitcase and the woman standing at the door yelling at him. We are left wondering what had happened? We can conclude that he had cheated on her by the comment she made to him, "You can't even look at me in the face, can you" (344). We can conclude that he is to ashamed because he got caught. Then the story sort of has a turn of events from the dispute between them to a dispute on who should get the child. In a way I think the woman triggered this event because she took the photo of the baby from the room in front of him. This then led to the dispute they had in the kitchen over their baby boy. From the descriptions in the book, we can conclude that there was a lot of movement and yelling throughout the kitchen since they were knocking things down and the baby was clear evidence because it was crying and upset.
Then at the end, when they both are pulling on the baby, we are left with the same effect as in the beginning of the story. What happened? We are left with the decision of did the man get the baby because he pulled harder than the woman, or did they end up splitting the baby in half. Which in terms they both got what they wanted.
This is what I got from the story in general, but when researching Carver, he wrote this story in the 80's which from that time to present marital disputes were common. He also witnessed this with his own parents in that his father was an alcoholic and abused and fought with his mother. So this could also conclude why he would write the story like this, with a mystery beginning and end, because he is referencing to a dispute his parents had. Only hearing the yelling and fighting, never the beginning or the conclusion of their fights.

Cite Used
http://www.whitman.edu/english/carver/biography1.html