"The Little Knife" and Other Short Stories Literary Elements

Short story collection/literary fiction

Coastal California, Pittsburgh, Paris, Nags Head, various locations in Maryland during the latter quarter of the 20th century.

Most of the story are narrated in third-person perspective. “A Model World” and “Millionaires” notably join “Blumenthal on the Air” as exceptions which are told by first-person participants in the narrative.

Despite a dark mood prevailing over the consistent subject matter revolving around the breakdown of various relationships, the tone generally remains light. This is thematically coherent as a unifying aspect of the collection is an attempt by the characters to present a deceptive façade which disguises the crumbling foundation of their tales.

Protagonist: Nathan Shapiro is the protagonist of the five interconnected stories comprising Part II of the collection. Antagonist: throughout both parts of the collection, the dominant antagonist is bad decision-making.

The conflict driving all these narratives is the tension produced by anxiety over the nature, status, or circumstances of relationships. It is the instability in the interaction between characters that creates this tension.

The most memorable climax in the collection is the shock ending of the opening story “S ANGEL” in which a man attending the wedding of his cousin winds up locked in a passionately incestuous kiss with the bride.

The opening line of “Ocean Avenue” foreshadows the conclusion of the story: “If you can still see how you could once have loved a person, you are still in love; an extinct love is always wholly incredible.”

“Millionaires” ends on a slightly ambiguous note of understatement: “We’re rich,” I said.

From the collection’s final story: “his penis had also begun to take on a concomitant forlorn and humorous aspect, sort of like the Jeep in Popeye cartoons.” This is a very strange choice for an allusion not just because of the comparison being made but because even by 1990 the Jeep had become an obscure point of reference for Popeye.

“We wore each other’s clothes and merged our record collections. The expenses on our apartment and the grocery bills we paid with one another’s money, spending in a rough and free rotation until both of us were broke.” The list of imagery unifying two characters that opens “Millionaires” subtly conveys the unspoken message that this story about two men who find that the one thing they seem unable to share is female companionship really don’t need that since they are already a perfect couple by themselves.

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From “A Model World”: “I suppose cuckoldry, charlatanism, and academic corruption are not the only things that could have produced a feeling of unease like the one that now suffused the dinner party.”

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Laughter is personified in “The Halloween Party.” “Her laugh…had always been odd…but lately it had come for Nathan to be invested with the darkness of sex and the raucousness of having survived misfortune.”