A Small, Good Thing

by

Raymond Carver

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Scotty Weiss Character Analysis

Scotty is Ann and Howard Weiss’s eight-year-old son. At the beginning of the story, he’s still seven and will be turning eight the following Monday. On the morning of his birthday, however, he gets hit by a car on his way to school and suffers brain trauma. Although Scotty feels okay at first, he soon falls into a coma and is hospitalized. His parents are distraught, though his doctor, Dr. Francis, believes that Scotty is fine and will wake up at any time. Scotty remains in the coma for a few days and then suddenly dies. This disorienting turn of events drives home the fragility and cyclical nature of life: opposing forces like life and death or joy and tragedy are in a delicate balance that can change in an instant. Losing Scotty devastates his parents; their grief in the wake of his death is a testament to how deep family bonds can be just as heartbreaking as they are fulfilling.

Scotty Weiss Quotes in A Small, Good Thing

The A Small, Good Thing quotes below are all either spoken by Scotty Weiss or refer to Scotty Weiss. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Joy and Tragedy Theme Icon
).
A Small, Good Thing Quotes

She was a mother and thirty-three years old, and it seemed to her that everyone, especially someone the baker’s age—a man old enough to be her father—must have children who’d gone through this special time of cakes and birthday parties. There must be that between them, she thought. But he was abrupt with her—not rude, just abrupt. She gave up trying to make friends with him.

Related Characters: Ann Weiss, Scotty Weiss, The Baker
Related Symbols: Birthday Cake
Page Number: 402
Explanation and Analysis:

Until now, his life had gone smoothly and to his satisfaction—college, marriage, another year of college for the advanced degree in business, a junior partnership in an investment firm. Fatherhood. He was happy and, so far, lucky—he knew that. His parents were still living, his brothers and his sister were established, his friends from college had gone out to take their places in the world. So far, he had kept away from any real harm, from those forces he knew existed and that could cripple or bring down a man if the luck went bad, if things suddenly turned.

Related Characters: Howard Weiss (speaker), Scotty Weiss
Page Number: 404
Explanation and Analysis:

“He’s all right,” the doctor said. “Nothing to shout about, he could be better, I think. But he’s all right. Still, I wish he’d wake up. He should wake up pretty soon.” The doctor looked at the boy again. “We’ll know some more in a couple of hours, after the results of a few more tests are in. But he’s all right, believe me, except for the hairline fracture of the skull. He does have that.”

Related Characters: Dr. Francis (speaker), Ann Weiss, Howard Weiss, Scotty Weiss, The Baker
Page Number: 407
Explanation and Analysis:

“...I’ve been praying,” he said.

“That’s good,” she said. For the first time, she felt they were together in it, this trouble. She realized with a start that, until now, it had only been happening to her and to Scotty. She hadn’t let Howard into it, though he was there and needed all along. She felt glad to be his wife.

Related Characters: Ann Weiss (speaker), Howard Weiss (speaker), Scotty Weiss
Page Number: 409
Explanation and Analysis:

She stood at the window with her hands gripping the sill, and knew in her heart that they were into something now, something hard. She was afraid, and her teeth began to chatter until she tightened her jaws. She saw a big car stop in front of the hospital and someone, a woman in a long coat, get into the car. She wished she were that woman and somebody, anybody, was driving her away from here to somewhere else, a place where she would find Scotty waiting for her when she stepped out of the car, ready to say Mom and let her gather him in her arms.

Related Characters: Ann Weiss (speaker), Scotty Weiss
Page Number: 411
Explanation and Analysis:

They both stared out at the parking lot. They didn’t say anything. But they seemed to feel each other’s insides now, as though the worry had made them transparent in a perfectly natural way.

Related Characters: Ann Weiss (speaker), Howard Weiss (speaker), Scotty Weiss, Dr. Francis
Page Number: 411
Explanation and Analysis:

She wanted to talk more with these people who were in the same kind of waiting she was in. She was afraid, and they were afraid. They had that in common. She would have liked to have said something else about the accident, told them more about Scotty, that it had happened on the day of his birthday, Monday, and that he was still unconscious. Yet she didn’t know how to begin. She stood looking at them without saying anything more.

Related Characters: Ann Weiss (speaker), Scotty Weiss, The Baker, Franklin , Franklin’s Family
Page Number: 414
Explanation and Analysis:

“They said they’re going to take him down and run more tests on him, Ann. They think they’re going to operate, honey. Honey, they are going to operate. They can’t figure out why he won’t wake up. It’s more than just shock or concussion, they know that much now. It’s in his skull, the fracture, it has something, something to do with that, they think. So they’re going to operate. I tried to call you, but I guess you’d already left the house.”

Related Characters: Howard Weiss (speaker), Ann Weiss, Scotty Weiss, Dr. Francis
Page Number: 417
Explanation and Analysis:

He began to weep. She pulled his head over into her lap and patted his shoulder. “He’s gone,” she said. She kept patting his shoulder. Over his sobs, she could hear the coffee-maker hissing in the kitchen. “There, there,” she said tenderly. “Howard, he’s gone. He’s gone and now we’ll have to get used to that. To being alone.”

Related Characters: Ann Weiss (speaker), Howard Weiss, Scotty Weiss
Page Number: 420
Explanation and Analysis:

Then he began to talk. They listened carefully. Although they were tired and in anguish, they listened to what the baker had to say. They nodded when the baker began to speak of loneliness, and of the sense of doubt and limitation that had come to him in his middle years. He told them what it was like to be childless all these years. To repeat the days with the ovens endlessly full and endlessly empty. The party food, the celebrations he’d worked over. Icing knuckle-deep. The tiny wedding couples stuck into cakes. Hundreds of them, no, thousands by now. Birthdays. Just imagine all those candles burning.

Related Characters: Ann Weiss, Howard Weiss, Scotty Weiss, The Baker, Dr. Francis
Related Symbols: Birthday Cake, Phone Calls
Page Number: 425
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire A Small, Good Thing LitChart as a printable PDF.
A Small, Good Thing PDF

Scotty Weiss Quotes in A Small, Good Thing

The A Small, Good Thing quotes below are all either spoken by Scotty Weiss or refer to Scotty Weiss. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Joy and Tragedy Theme Icon
).
A Small, Good Thing Quotes

She was a mother and thirty-three years old, and it seemed to her that everyone, especially someone the baker’s age—a man old enough to be her father—must have children who’d gone through this special time of cakes and birthday parties. There must be that between them, she thought. But he was abrupt with her—not rude, just abrupt. She gave up trying to make friends with him.

Related Characters: Ann Weiss, Scotty Weiss, The Baker
Related Symbols: Birthday Cake
Page Number: 402
Explanation and Analysis:

Until now, his life had gone smoothly and to his satisfaction—college, marriage, another year of college for the advanced degree in business, a junior partnership in an investment firm. Fatherhood. He was happy and, so far, lucky—he knew that. His parents were still living, his brothers and his sister were established, his friends from college had gone out to take their places in the world. So far, he had kept away from any real harm, from those forces he knew existed and that could cripple or bring down a man if the luck went bad, if things suddenly turned.

Related Characters: Howard Weiss (speaker), Scotty Weiss
Page Number: 404
Explanation and Analysis:

“He’s all right,” the doctor said. “Nothing to shout about, he could be better, I think. But he’s all right. Still, I wish he’d wake up. He should wake up pretty soon.” The doctor looked at the boy again. “We’ll know some more in a couple of hours, after the results of a few more tests are in. But he’s all right, believe me, except for the hairline fracture of the skull. He does have that.”

Related Characters: Dr. Francis (speaker), Ann Weiss, Howard Weiss, Scotty Weiss, The Baker
Page Number: 407
Explanation and Analysis:

“...I’ve been praying,” he said.

“That’s good,” she said. For the first time, she felt they were together in it, this trouble. She realized with a start that, until now, it had only been happening to her and to Scotty. She hadn’t let Howard into it, though he was there and needed all along. She felt glad to be his wife.

Related Characters: Ann Weiss (speaker), Howard Weiss (speaker), Scotty Weiss
Page Number: 409
Explanation and Analysis:

She stood at the window with her hands gripping the sill, and knew in her heart that they were into something now, something hard. She was afraid, and her teeth began to chatter until she tightened her jaws. She saw a big car stop in front of the hospital and someone, a woman in a long coat, get into the car. She wished she were that woman and somebody, anybody, was driving her away from here to somewhere else, a place where she would find Scotty waiting for her when she stepped out of the car, ready to say Mom and let her gather him in her arms.

Related Characters: Ann Weiss (speaker), Scotty Weiss
Page Number: 411
Explanation and Analysis:

They both stared out at the parking lot. They didn’t say anything. But they seemed to feel each other’s insides now, as though the worry had made them transparent in a perfectly natural way.

Related Characters: Ann Weiss (speaker), Howard Weiss (speaker), Scotty Weiss, Dr. Francis
Page Number: 411
Explanation and Analysis:

She wanted to talk more with these people who were in the same kind of waiting she was in. She was afraid, and they were afraid. They had that in common. She would have liked to have said something else about the accident, told them more about Scotty, that it had happened on the day of his birthday, Monday, and that he was still unconscious. Yet she didn’t know how to begin. She stood looking at them without saying anything more.

Related Characters: Ann Weiss (speaker), Scotty Weiss, The Baker, Franklin , Franklin’s Family
Page Number: 414
Explanation and Analysis:

“They said they’re going to take him down and run more tests on him, Ann. They think they’re going to operate, honey. Honey, they are going to operate. They can’t figure out why he won’t wake up. It’s more than just shock or concussion, they know that much now. It’s in his skull, the fracture, it has something, something to do with that, they think. So they’re going to operate. I tried to call you, but I guess you’d already left the house.”

Related Characters: Howard Weiss (speaker), Ann Weiss, Scotty Weiss, Dr. Francis
Page Number: 417
Explanation and Analysis:

He began to weep. She pulled his head over into her lap and patted his shoulder. “He’s gone,” she said. She kept patting his shoulder. Over his sobs, she could hear the coffee-maker hissing in the kitchen. “There, there,” she said tenderly. “Howard, he’s gone. He’s gone and now we’ll have to get used to that. To being alone.”

Related Characters: Ann Weiss (speaker), Howard Weiss, Scotty Weiss
Page Number: 420
Explanation and Analysis:

Then he began to talk. They listened carefully. Although they were tired and in anguish, they listened to what the baker had to say. They nodded when the baker began to speak of loneliness, and of the sense of doubt and limitation that had come to him in his middle years. He told them what it was like to be childless all these years. To repeat the days with the ovens endlessly full and endlessly empty. The party food, the celebrations he’d worked over. Icing knuckle-deep. The tiny wedding couples stuck into cakes. Hundreds of them, no, thousands by now. Birthdays. Just imagine all those candles burning.

Related Characters: Ann Weiss, Howard Weiss, Scotty Weiss, The Baker, Dr. Francis
Related Symbols: Birthday Cake, Phone Calls
Page Number: 425
Explanation and Analysis: