On Waiting in Raymond Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing”
The essay examines three temporalities traversed by Scotty’s parents as their child lies in a coma drifting towards his death. In the first temporal dimension, time is sought to be harnessed to human desire; here the parents’ waiting is purposeful, framed by prediction and expectation whose symboli...
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| Опубликовано в: : | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse, |
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| Главный автор: | |
| Формат: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Язык: | Anglais |
| Опубликовано: |
Journal of the Short Story in English
2008
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| Online-ссылка: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Итог: | The essay examines three temporalities traversed by Scotty’s parents as their child lies in a coma drifting towards his death. In the first temporal dimension, time is sought to be harnessed to human desire; here the parents’ waiting is purposeful, framed by prediction and expectation whose symbolic space is the waiting room. Once these temporal markers prove illusory, Scotty’s parents begin to wait in a dimension beyond measurable time; its locus is the parking lot outside the hospital window where an endless stream of entering and exiting cars performs a temporal fluidity immeasurable and indifferent to waiting and the hope it implies. In a third temporal dimension, symbolized by the space of the cathedral, the futile repetitions of time are miraculously gathered up in an unexpected plentitude, a sudden fulfillment of time, attained in the parents’ meal with the baker. |
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