There have been many perceptions about story telling. There have been all sorts of reasons for people to engage in both listening and telling of stories. This is however not the main interest of the paper but rather it is the way stories are told. There exists a debate of whether the act of giving long and adequate explanations is preferable to lack of explanations and use of mystery.
The short story “say yes” by Tobias Wolf is one that puts to light several aspects of storytelling. There is a setting of a peaceful home in which the husband and wife display comfort in sharing of house chores. This displays the concept of the role of men in the society which is insinuated to mostly not involve house chores. According to Charles E. May, in short stories it is better to say little than to say too much. The narrator does not necessarily get into the traits that were considered for a husband to be thought of as considerate but said just enough to make the listener think of the duties of a husband.
As they talked, Ann and her husband conversed about interracial marriages. Though it is only natural for a husband to give an honest opinion to his spouse, there is an acute reaction by his wife about his opinion in the subject. The main concept on the work of Charles E. May is that explanations of situations are rather futile but rather the use of mystery in stories should be used. This is because they allow the reader to make their own assumptions and create their own opinions and perceptions. In this case, there is not enough information on the reasons why Ann reacts the way she does to the opinion of her husband on the issue of racial intermarriage. It is hard to understand why she may have felt offended by the fact that the husband would not marry a black woman. In the same way, the husband’s actions cannot be well explained because his explanation for his reasoning is also less than satisfactory. He could only manage to tell the wife that if she were black she would not really be the same person but he could not explain what he meant by that. It is also surprising that even after firmly stating that he does not support interracial marriage even in the least he gets so defensive at the slightest implication that he is a racist. Her insinuation may not have been wrong because racism simply can be defined as the belief that one race is superior to another and assumes that success or failure will depend on genetics and culture rather than environment access to opportunity.There is also some suspense in the fact that the narrator gave Ann a name but did not identify her husband by name.
The narrator describes the body language involved in by both characters. Ann’s rate in washing dishes becomes fast and somewhat careless. This is articulated by the lack of precision and cleanliness which forced the husband to do the dishes again. The husband also refers to a certain look that the wife usually gets when she is not happy. Though it was logical for him to stop talking to prevent from making her upset, he more often than not never did that. Instead he always went ahead and said things that often made her angry.
Unfortunately there was a turn of events where Ann hurt her finger while talking heatedly with her husband. This led to her husband nursing her wound and then going on to help her with the dishes. It is interesting that the wife would not let the subject go and brought it up immediately after the husband nursed her wound. The conversation only ended when the husband admitted that if his wife were black, he would not have even considered marrying her. This made Ann so furious that she left her husband to finish the rest of the dishes. She picked up a magazine and pretended to read it as a way to show indifference to her husband. This hurt him but also had an effect on him that is not exactly stipulated in the story. This leaves the readers to contemplate and conclude what this effect was. Was it anger, irritation or disappointment?
The narrator takes a moment to explain the scenery of their neighborhood giving a homely and how peaceful the place was. Ann’s husband stood outside their house thinking about the fight he had just had with his wife. He however regrets having a fight with his wife and thinks of their life together and how much they loved each other. The narrator gives an account of different sensations and feelings that this man experiences which I can only attribute to the fond thoughts he had of his wife. The man scares some dogs away when he snapped out of his thoughts and took the garbage out onto the street.
When he went back to the house, he felt the need to reconcile with his wife and take back what he had said by declaring that he would marry his wife, this although not stated can be assumed to mean even though she would have been black. This is an interesting and confusing turn of events that displays a contrast of his statement with his earlier thoughts. If he thought this matter of racism futile, why would he think it important to take back his word and go against his own opinion? His wife also acts as mysteriously as she had before because when her husband confessed, she did not show any excitement or gladness on the matter.
The other most important part of a story according to Charles E. May is that it is important for a story to end with mystery when he emphasizes using the story by Benjamin Carver named “Will you please be quiet?” the narrator in this story gives an account where the husband is asked to switch off the light by his wife and after doing so thinks of his wife as a stranger. Why would the husband view his wife as a stranger in the dark? And most importantly, what events transpired after where the narrator stopped the story? This ends the story in a way that cannot be understood with simple logic and reason. Stories are not meant to portray a perfect human nature but they are used to work on imagination and display the different ways in which human nature is dynamic.
Works Cited
May, Charles E. Do You See What I'm Saying? : The Inadequacy of Explanation and the Uses of Story in the short Fiction of Raymond Carver. Long Beach: California State University, 2001.Samavor L. A., Porter R. E. & Mcdaniel, D. R. Communication between cultures. Conneticut: Cengage Learning, 2009.
Shapard, Robert. Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories. East Gentile, Layton: Gibbs Smith, 1986.
