“Jerry, Molly and Sam” Theme Esasy

Writer, Raymond Carver, in his short essay, “Jerry and Molly and Sam,” introduces us to Al. Al, is a thirty-one year old man who exhibits a demeanor of finding everyone around him at fault for his dissatisfaction in life. Writer uses first and third person narrative in a chronological plot structure to help his readers understand his character and story theme. The short story plot ensued in a chronological form. Al’s story goes from exposition, to complication, to the reversal as the final part of the essay.

This format is used in the story helps us understand Al’s background story, problems and issues. At the very beginning of the short story we are able to determine what Al’s problem was “As Al saw it there was only one solution. He had to get rid of the dog.” These two sentences help his readers determine that Al strongly dislikes his dog and make us wonder why? As the story develops we learn that Al has a life full of worries.

His employer is laying off people, he is cheating on his wife, and he is getting old and feels he is life is spawning out of control. The writer goes onto describing Al’s though process and only way gain control of his life. “He had to start someplace- setting things in order. And he intended to start tonight.” Al is seen as trying to make sense of it all and come to some sort of resolution to change his down spiral life for the better. In Al’s mind, taken the dog out of the picture was the obvious place to start. In the story Al has channeled all his unhappiness and inability to cope with his own problems on the dog and he thinks that getting rid of the dog would somehow bring some relieve to his many problems.

Writer tells a story in third person, which help us understand Al’s emotions and reaction to his life situation. And he uses specify language to demonstrate Al’s mental state. Raymond the writer use words like “the way Al put it” “As Al saw it” in a way to again express that Al finds someone other than himself at fault for his problems. During the reversal or the last part of the story the writer uses the first person to acknowledge Al’s realization of his error of forsaking the family dog by saying “What have I done?” than “I believe I have made the graves mistake this time.

I believe I have made the gravest mistake of all.” A great way to make the readers aware of character views on himself and his actions that lead him to the low point of his life story. Mr. Carver does a great job navigating the readers through a part of Al’s story and problems. He uses the first/third person chronological in a brilliant way that makes the story easy to follow, yearning for more due to the many unanswered questions on the short story.