He is a heart surgeon, but by his own admission he’s just a ‘mechanic’ who fixes things that people have physically wrong with them. Mel’s job is also rich with symbolism, but also irony.
It is perhaps significant that this moment leads the four adults to grin at each other like children: they have been made more innocent by the light, rather than wiser or more experienced. It is already suspect, we might say, because it has the effect of making the domestic reality of Mel’s kitchen into an enchanted space: somewhere unreal and fantastical, in other words. The light transforms the room into somewhere that seems enchanted or magical.Īnd yet, if this is a moment of potential epiphany – that moment of revelation or enlightenment characters experience in modern fiction, and especially in short stories – the light, and the enlightenment, will be short-lived. It is significant that, in contrast to the final paragraph of the story when the kitchen is plunged into darkness, an earlier moment saw the afternoon sun flooding the room with a light which Nick describes as easy and generous. But is this ‘love’ either? Or is it lust and passion, which in the heady first days (and months) of romance we mistake for love? This is a question Carver’s narrative invites us to ask ourselves.
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