Everything Stuck To Him By Raymond Carver Analysis

“Everything Stuck to Him”

In the short story "Everything Stuck to Him” by Raymond Carver a girl in Milan for Christmas wants to know about her past. The boy in the story tells his daughter about the past but it involves her in a minor way. The boy tells the story from his perspective. The story begins by saying how in love this couple is with their new baby that is about three months old. The boy calls up his old hunting buddy and they decide to make a hunting trip the next day. The boy walked down stairs to get all of his hunting gear ready. The boy tells the girl and she is perfectly fine about the trip. After dinner the boy helps the girl bathe the baby. Once the bath was down, the family got ready for bed. About half way through the night, the baby started to cry. The boy wakes up and see’s the girl holding the baby. The boy offers to hold the baby while the girl gets some sleep. The boy put the baby down and went back to sleep. A few minutes later, the baby began to cry some more. The boy swore and the girl got all angry at him. The girl thinks the baby is sick but the boy does not. The girl began to cry. The boy goes to get coffee ready and get his hunting gear on. The girl does not think the boy should go hunting due to the baby crying. The boy ends up putting all of his hunting gear on and going out to the car. when he gets in the car he realises that he should stay

and take care of the baby.

Once he goes back into the house, the girl makes him pancakes and they have a happy breakfast.The story is telling the daughter how difficult life can be to make decisions about

family, love, and poor decisions.

Love plays a huge roll in this story. On page 22 line 18, it says “They were kids themselves, but they were crazy in love.” and on page 23 line 41 it says “The two kids were very much in love.” When the boy was 18 and the girl was 17, they decided to get married. The boy and girl lived in a little apartment under a dentist office and clean it together in exchange for rent and utilities. At the end of the story the boy says “Things change, I do not know how they do, but they do without you realizing it or wanting them to.” 20 years later as the boy who is telling the story to his daughter is trying to tell her to find the right person to love. The daughter is at that age where she should start to find someone to settle down with and live a long and happy life with that person.

Family is something we all have, even in stories. The boy and girl are now a family with a baby that is three months old. They are new at parenting that is why when they give the baby a bath on page 24 line 85, they think the baby is sick because when they set the baby down and go to sleep, the baby will not stop crying. When you have a family and become a parent one of the hardest parts is having to wake up in the middle of the night to help and care for the baby like the boy and girl had to do. The boy who is telling the story is telling his daughter that being a parent is tough work. He is letting her know what nights are like with a new baby.

In this story, there are poor decisions. When the girl told the boy you have to choose Carl or us on page 28 line 180, that could have potentially changed his life. When he got in the car, he realized that he needs to stay and take care of his baby and wife. At first he made a poor decision but he changed his mind which was a good thing. another poor choice was when he called up his friend Carl, he should have made sure it was alright with the girl even though she said it was fine, he should have really made sure. Just because she says she is okay with it that does not always mean it. The boy who is telling his daughter the story is letter his daughter know that you should never make poor decisions. It does not matter how badly you want to do something, you always need to make the right decision.

This whole story is about how the boy is telling his daughter that life is not going to be easy. He makes points about different topics the girl might go through in her life-like family, love, and poor decisions. First, make sure that you fall in love with the right person. Second, become a parent when you ready, there is no rush to have a baby when you are older. The last one is do not make poor decisions because they can affect you in the long run. No matter what you do in life, someone will always love you like the father towards the daughter.