In Raymond Carver’s short story, “Popular Mechanics,” the deliberate choices he makes enhance the plot and further thicken the dark, melancholy setting, theme, and tone. The absence of quotation marks and other simple forms of punctuation throughout the text display a sense of a frantic and rushed situation, while the sentence that appears in the short story too many times to count highlights the insignificance the couple’s baby truly holds in the dangerous debacle. Lastly, the importance of the title itself reveals the story’s theme and connection to the text. Overall, these discrepancies create a more impactful plot, setting, and theme the reader will appreciate. Throughout the entire account, the reader will find that the lack of true dialogue adds to the characterization and heightens the suspense. Although the male and female characters both speak to each other as the story unravels, readers discover quite quickly that the author does not include quotation marks and other forms of punctuation. This style gives the tragic record frantic and rushed characteristics -- the same feeling expressed in the situation the author writes. The author’s choice to exclude such simple writing tools gives more to the text as it takes something away, and results in a fuller mood and tone of the piece. A skilled reader will…show more content… “Popular Mechanics” may seem like a misprint from a high school engineering textbook, but each word has its own gravity when one looks further. The title “Popular Mechanics,” comes from a magazine with articles that pertain to the ironic subject of home improvement. No better title exists than the one that labels this story, for the tongue-in-cheek name Carver gives this text fits it perfectly. Home improvement seems like exactly, and without a doubt, what this piqued pair