Narrator and point of view

“Popular Mechanics” by Raymond Carver“ is a third-person narrative, told by a narrator who is outside the plot and acts as an observer of the events. The tone of the narrator is impersonal and detached, as he simply records what is happening without hinting at any sympathy for one or the other of the characters: “The baby was red-faced and screaming. In the scuffle they knocked down a flowerpot that hung behind the stove. He crowded her into the wall then, trying to break her grip.”; “In this manner, the issue was decided.”

The narrator seems to have limited knowledge of the characters and their past. Still, at the end of the story, the narrator reveals that he knows more about the woman than the man, as he presents the way she feels and wha...