Wrack by Donald Barthelme
"Wrack" by Donald Barthelme is a dialogue-driven short story featuring two unnamed men engaged in a conversation set in a garden. The structure of the story relies heavily on their spoken exchanges, prompting the reader to piece together context and meaning from their remarks. The dialogue oscillates between lighthearted banter and deeper, more disconcerting themes, as the men discuss various seemingly mundane topics, such as gardening, personal possessions, and their shared task of deciding on the color of trucks.
Underlying their conversation is a complex emotional landscape, including hints of a recent divorce for one of the men, indicated through the mention of personal belongings and references to a former wife. The interaction reveals their relationship dynamics, where one man appears to be both a friend and a lawyer for the other’s ex-wife. As the dialogue unfolds, it juxtaposes trivial concerns with the weight of their shared history, illustrating how objects and memories intertwine within personal relationships. The story invites readers to reflect on the nature of conversation, ownership, and the emotional remnants of past connections.
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Wrack by Donald Barthelme
First published: 1972
Type of plot: Psychological
Time of work: 1972
Locale: The garden of a suburban house
Principal Characters:
A man , recently divorcedThe lawyer , representing the divorced wife
The Story
Two unnamed men are conversing; the text reports only their dialogue, so that the reader must make sense of their remarks as if overhearing them. The opening remarks place the reader in a garden on a day of sunshine and clouds. When the sun is behind a cloud, the first speaker complains of being cold but admits to being consoled lately by the flowers, the Japanese rock garden, Social Security, philosophy, and sexuality.
Then the tone changes. Each man asserts that the other is driving him crazy, and the second man complains of the cold and reports that he still has to "muck out the stable and buff up the silver." He is working for an unspecified "they," who trust him completely. Also, he and the first man have a joint interest in deciding "what color to paint the trucks."
This apparently idle conversation begins to include some odd questions asked by the second speaker: "The kid ever come to see you?" "Where's your watch?" Then he says, "The hollowed-out book . . . is not yours. We've established that. Let's go on." Other items follow, with no system or meaning: doors, a bonbon dish, a shoe, a hundred-pound sack of saccharin, a dressing gown, and "two mattresses surrounding the single slice of salami."
This line of questioning, though obviously not literal and realistic, makes the reader realize that the first man has recently been divorced, that the second man is simultaneously an acquaintance and a lawyer for the divorced wife, and that the two men are establishing the individual ownership of possessions once held in common.
Each item gives rise to a series of remarks, in the course of which the reader learns about "my former wife"—who may not be the one now divorcing the speaker—and Shirley, a former maid. Near the end of the dialogue the lawyer describes the former husband as "too old": "You're too old, that's all it is, think nothing of it," and he denies that description "wholeheartedly" (insisting on that term). The men conclude by raising again the subject of the trucks to be painted.
Bibliography
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Gordon, Lois. Donald Barthelme. Boston: Twayne, 1981.
Hudgens, Michael Thomas. Donald Barthelme: Postmodernist American Writer. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001.
Klinkowitz, Jerome. Donald Barthelme: An Exhibition. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991.
McCaffery, Larry. The Metafictional Muse: The Works of Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme, and William H. Gass. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982.
Molesworth, Charles. Donald Barthelme's Fiction: The Ironist Saved from Drowning. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1982.
Olsen, Lance, ed. Review of Contemporary Fiction 11 (Summer, 1991).
Patteson, Richard F., ed. Critical Essays on Donald Barthelme. New York: G. K. Hall, 1992.
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Waxman, Robert. "Apollo and Dionysus: Donald Barthelme's Dance of Life." Studies in Short Fiction 33 (Spring, 1996): 229-243.