"Popular Mechanics": Now is that more than one mechanic?

"Don't, she said. You're hurting the baby, she said." -Popular Mechanics

     Might I start out by saying that if I were to become a famous author, I don't think the photo on the back of my book could be any more intimidating than Raymond Carver's. He's staring into my soul...No, he's staring through my mind, manipulating my every thought, transporting it through my body, and planting it in the depths of my soul. I gave myself chills. Okay, enough of Ray.    

     Most of this post is going to be geared (it's punny, because it's Popular "Mechanics") towards style and how Carver gets the most out of such a short story. The story uses very little punctuation when it comes to quotes and emotional statements. That is what is unique about the language of the story. The statements are short and forceful, and sort of leave the true emotion up to the reader. The husband and wife are undoubtedly mad at one another, and the third-person author makes use of their limited dialogue to add some details that enhance the imagery of the dispute so the reader can make a better interpretation of true emotion. However, what was most important to me while I was reading was the baby. If you've seen one domestic dispute on Cops, you've seen them all, but I found it tragic that the baby should be hurt because of the dispute. It made me realized how important the child was to the coherence of the story. Surely if the baby wasn't a part of the equation, the mother and father would be long gone from one another. As far as symbolism goes, the child is what holds the family together. At the end when "the issue was decided," and the baby's arm breaks or does something of the equivalent, what ties were left in the family had been severed. I chose the above quote because I felt like the mother's words were symbolically saying that the father was hurting the relationship, and she seemed truly sorrowful about that.