Fishing_For_Life

Fishing For Life Fishing for Life Raymond Carver’s short story “The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off” is a great insight into what materialistic values can do to a person. Carver uses a little boy’s explanation of the third thing that killed his father to tell about the life of another gentleman. This gentleman goes from a place of constant put-downs, to a state of mind where he’s in charge, then to a tragic death. According to the narrator, this man’s name is Dummy, at least that’s what everyone calls him. Dummy works as a cleanup man at the Cascade Lumber Company in Yakima, Washington. He is a short, wrinkly, baldheaded man with a mouth full of rotting teeth. He suffers from a personal handicap. He is not deaf, but he can’t talk. He is only capable of communicating through body language. He carries tools that he will never use: a flashlight (he works days), screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches, friction tape, and many other things that millwrights carry (but he’s a cleanup man). These things bring on the ridicule from his co-workers. The only one who doesn’t kid him is the narrator’s father. Dummy has a life, fish, father, pond, one, dummy, wife, values, things, personal, over, narrator’s, materialistic, man, killed, house, dummy’s, control, works, third, thing, something, short, never, narrator, lead, he’s, gentleman, death, cleanup, bring, bass, around, things, yet