Raymond Carver The Bath Summary

The title of the piece that I read is The Bath, written by Raymond Carver. The piece is about a little boy who, through a simple error, gets knocked down by a car on his birthday thus missing his upcoming birthday party and his birthday cake that seemingly never gets collected nor paid for.

This is a little difficult to answer. The story is not written in such a way so as to express something, at least not according to my interpretation of it. I tend to take things how they are written and because it is a fictional story, there may be a broader or deeper meaning to the piece that I am not seeing. Reading the revies of the pieces on the group discussion this week it became clear that Raymond Carver's writing style resonates with the other students in a way that is different to how I perceive it. With all due respect to the authro, I found the piece to be a bit pointless, It says something, but also nothing at the same time. There is clearly a symbolism I am missing out on here, but i suspect this is due to my lack of rapport with the writer's works. Were I to have a more intimate understanding of his economical writing, I'd be able to delve deeper into and articulate a broader understanding of his works.
My interpretation of the story is that there is a main theme which is this boy who gets knocked down by a car which seems to set off a chain of events, such as the father appearing seemingly disconnected from the mother's efforts for the child's birthday (he didn't know about the cake). Also, the cake itself, we never learn about whether the cake gets paid for or whether it gets collected. The other point raised in this story, when the parents are at the hospital, is that they realise someone needs to feed the pet. So, I guess one could say that these "parts" of the story are representative of the reality that is this child having been knocked