What do you think about Carver’s style? The story is almost entirely dialogue, so it isn’t necessarily easy to see where things start to go wrong. What do you think of the characters, Wayne and Caroline? Their dinner out is supposed to be the “first of the extravagances they had planned.” Do you think they made it to the other things they’d planned? What sort of man is Wayne? What sort of job do you imagine he does? What about Caroline, what seems to be going on with her?
Inés is cooking dinner as we come into García’s story and Inés’s thoughts are interspersed with the preparations she is making. There is a sort of indirect quality to the story. What do you think of this style, compared to Carver’s more direct style? Read carefully the cooking moments, are they symbolic at all? What do you think of Richard? Why do you think he doesn’t appear in the story except in Inés’s thoughts? What do you think of Inés?
Do either of these stories’ couples have a good future ahead of them? Explain.
Think about how different these two approaches are, and yet look at how they write about similar feelings: discontent, feeling trapped or unable to alter a downward spiral.
