My face when I realized that, indeed, the baby was going to get torn in half.
Aaaand I decided because of foreshadowing! "Then she noticed the baby's picture on the bed and picked it up." "He held onto the baby and pushed [pulled?] with all his weight."
I have decided that there are some metaphors in the story too. "But it was getting darker on this inside too," for instance, is a metaphor. It's not really getting darker inside because daylight doesn't have much of an effect on indoor lighting, usually. The real meaning is that the atmosphere is darkening. Also, since the story itself is actually about divorce, the baby getting torn apart (=[=[=[=[=[=[=[!!!!!!=[) symbolizes the way that divorce can, sometimes, tear a family apart.
The author's distinct lack of quotation marks lends to the tug of war feeling of the story. She tugs and shouts, and he tugs and shouts....
Aaaalso, the title "Popular Mechanics" is probably a reference to the mainstream/status quo and divorce. At first, I thought it had something to do with the mechanics of babies and how they are structured, because to be honest, when I read something, and the baby dies at the end, it becomes a story about a baby dying, no matter WHAT anybody else says. Nyeugh.
I still think the baby died.
ReplyDeleteI feel justified in this because it is a fictional baby.