Daniel Richardson Flow/Transition
Professor Jesse Miller Topic Sentences
ENG 110, Section H-4 Paragraph Structure
16 October 2016
Meals Throughout the Ages
For thousands of years food has epitomized deep social and moral values in human culture. Texts as old the bible document the significance of communal eating and the notion of finding comfort in food. If one was to sift forward through the sands of time, almost 2,000 years later, they would find similar themes portrayed in 1980’s society, as chronicled by Raymond Carver’s short story classic, “A Small, Good Thing”. Moreover, primary source documents, written by a group of University students suggest that this deep social and psychological connection to food is still evident, another 35 years later, in the year 2017. Coincidence , some may say, it is just food. This much is true, but is it more? Although separate texts and separate time periods, a closer investigation would reveal similarities in these texts, suggesting a deep-rooted perceived relation between food and empathy , including its effects on human traditions and…
In Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing” The story takes us through the events surrounding the weekend surrounding the birthday of young “Scotty”, and his parents “Ann” and “Howard”. The story starts off with an innocent enough beginning, with Ann, mother of scotty preparing to buy her son a birthday cake. However, the story, takes an extreme twist, when the young “Birthday Boy”, Scotty is hit by a car. Upon his hospitalization, his parents, understandably, forget about his birthday cake and cancel his party. The deteriorating cake, something that was supposed to be so happy and … getting dry and stale possibly serves as a symbol that the occasion is no longer happy. The moment has lost its value, as later the baker will not charge full price. The story follows the harrowing, and ultimately heartbreaking anxiety of Scotty’s parent to await his feeling better. Each passing minute, their anxiety swells, as does their anticipation. This all takes place unknown to the baker, who places several calls to the parents asking if they have forgotten about Scotty, meaning his cake. It is here that anxiety and anticipation ultimately progress into delusion. Sadly, Scotty does not pull through. In his parent’s nutrition-deprived grief, they figure out that the baker was the mysterious caller, and blame him in a most delusional fashion for the event that have occurred, saying things such as “That bastard. I’d like to kill him. I’d like to shoot him and watch him kick” (p. 215). This unforgiving mindset causes them to confront the baker at the end of the book, where the baker successfully calms them down, and consoles them over eating rolls.
Food is something that is representative of greater social gatherings, that people take as a point of relation between themselves. In the opening scene of Carver’s story, Ann is depicted picking out a cake for her son, as a token of his party and his celebration of growing a year older. He notes Ann’s interaction with the baker. While Ann does not personally know the baker, she infers that a man of his age must have experienced through “this special time of cakes and birthday parties”, and have his own children who have gone through it with their children (p. 204) While it appears Carver uses the cakes as a measure of time, Ann’s assurance of a “connection” between her and this man suggest that cake is just as easily relatable as it is customary in Western culture birthday parties, a product of social gathering. In his “More Than Just a Meal”, Sean Walsh, University of New England student , seems to echo Carver’s sentiments. He states :
…to be able to come together with your family to share a meal is an unbelievable privilege. At the end of the day, holidays are more than what we are eating, but what we are doing while we eat and who we share the meal with.
Although different scenarios…, Much how Carver associates cake to gathering and celebration in 1982, Walsh instantaneously associates holidays with food in 2017. Moreover, he details the significance of the meal, into how one’s family come together. (Social gathering to time going by transition…)
As well as being related to social gathering, food appears to be a generationally wide method of expressing feelings and coping. On page 214, Ann remarks “Howard, He’s gone. He’s gone and Now we’ll have to get used to that. To being alone.” Soon after, the Ann and Howard go to visit the baker. At the end of the story, on page 218, when Scotty’s parents finally return to the bakery after his death, Scotty’s parents finally learn that in fact birthday cakes are a symbol of loneliness for the baker.
To repeat the days with the ovens endlessly full of and endlessly empty. The party food and celebrations that he’d worked over. Icing knuckle-deep. The tiny wedding couples stuck into cakes. Hundreds of them, no, thousands by now. Birthdays. Just imagining all of those candles burning.
—- Understand concept, emotional arrival, connect to next writer
To be lonely and without children are a truly haunting motif in Carver’s story. The baker has sadly sat back and created these staples of family celebrations, but never got to experience any of it himself. While especially hard at fir st, he has begun to find solace in baking, noting that baking “was a better smell anytime than flowers”. While at first, Ann may have thought that she could relate to the baker at the beginning of the story, it is not now until she truly does.
Through hot rolls, coping
As the baker finds solace in baking, Breanna Hogan states that throughout her life, cooking is “[Her parent’s] time during the day to step away from their busy lives and to be with one another. Cooking is a great day to get away. But cope, preserving memory
In her “The Key to My Heart”, Christina Giannopoulos describes how sharing a dish allows her to relate with her aunt and appreciate the time that they have together.
Since my aunt is sick with cancer, I think the reason I love her salad so much is because it means that she is safe and I am still able to spend time with her. I’m not sure how many more times I will be able to eat multiple bowls of this salad with her in my presence, but I do know that whenever I take over the role of making this salad, I will always have her in mind. My Auntie Georgia is a very important part of my life and the way she prepares it for me with crisp bread every time I go to her house solidifies her health in my mind. I enjoy the meals that I get to have this salad because it specifically reminds me of her. Many memories from my childhood and my personal connections to family members makes this my favorite meal to eat.
While Giannopoulos’s piece may carry a heartbreaking tone, she is thankful that she can know her aunt through this dish. In stating that “…whenever I take over the role of making this salad, I will always have her in mind”, Giannopoulos associates continuing on her aunt’s legacy with making this dish, with preserving her memory.
“It’s better to feed people”
Offers up his rolls.
“Smell this,” the baker said, breaking open a dark loaf. “It’s heavy bread, but rich.” They smelled it, then he had them taste it. It had the taste of molasses and coarse grains. They listened to him. They ate what they could. They swallowed the dark bread. It was like daylight under the fluorescent trays of light. They talked on into the early morning, the high, pale cast of light in the windows, as they did not think of leaving.”
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