Connection, Understanding, and Adversity Theme Analysis

Before the start of “A Small, Good Thing,” Ann and Howard Weiss and their son, Scotty, lived a fairly idyllic life. But on his eighth birthday, Scotty is hit by a car and eventually dies after being comatose in the hospital for days. During and after their time waiting in the hospital, Ann and Howard connect with strangers who are also experiencing hardship or uncertainty. Scotty’s death causes Ann and Howard to connect with others over their shared pain in a way they couldn’t in the past, suggesting that tragedy allows people to understand each other on a deeper level than they can during better times.

In the story, Ann and Howard don’t connect deeply with others or see other people’s pain prior to experiencing tragedy themselves. For instance, at the beginning of the story, Ann orders a birthday cake for Scotty from a baker, who dodges her attempts at conversation. The baker’s “abrupt” way of talking to Ann makes her uncomfortable, and she immediately brands him as unfriendly and disinterested. She can’t understand why he doesn’t make an effort to connect with her about her son’s birthday. She assumes that a man his age must have children of his own and should be able to understand how she feels about Scotty’s birthday. Later, when Ann fails to pick up the cake because she’s with Scotty in the hospital, the baker calls her repeatedly. After Scotty dies, Ann finally realizes that these phone calls must be from the baker. Both parties are angry—Ann and Howard because of the incessant phone calls and painful reminders of their son’s death, and the baker because the couple didn’t pick up the cake. But when Ann and Howard open up to the baker about their son’s death, the baker opens up, too. Before this conversation, Ann thought that the baker was unfriendly—but what he tells her about his own struggles gives her insight into his behavior. She’s learned that the baker likely didn’t want to chat about her son’s birthday during their first meeting because his own childlessness grieves him deeply. Now that Howard and Ann have experienced tragedy themselves, they’re able to listen to what the baker has gone through and connect with him over their shared struggles.

Dealing with her son’s accident also makes Ann more empathetic towards other people who are dealing with tragedy, like another family she meets in the hospital’s waiting room, who are also waiting to see if their son, Franklin, will survive. When Ann first comes into the waiting room, Franklin’s mother immediately asks her if she has any news about Franklin’s condition, and Franklin’s father explains that his son was stabbed during a fight at a party. Ann wants to talk more with Franklin’s family but feels unable to say anything else. She recognizes the connection in their situation: they “were in the same kind of waiting she was in. She was afraid, and they were afraid. They had that in common.” Her son hasn’t yet died at this point, so Ann hasn’t been fully transformed by her tragedy. She still struggles to communicate her pain with the family (an issue she doesn’t have when talking to the baker after Scotty’s death). But she nevertheless feels connected to them and wants to share with them in a way she perhaps wouldn’t have before the accident. It’s possible that Ann wouldn’t have felt the same connection with this family in a normal time, because they’re Black and Ann is implied to be white—her last name, Weiss, literally means “white” in German and Yiddish. This racial difference is magnified because the story is set in an indeterminate past era, which is signaled by Ann referring to the family’s race using language that is currently considered offensive. The family’s tragedy, then, is what bridges the gap between their experiences. Both Ann and Franklin’s family are struggling with waiting to hear news about a son, and then both families must grapple with terrible loss. The story implies that without this shared experience of tragedy, these two families likely wouldn’t have the same level of connection and empathy for one another.

The story suggests that in times of tragedy, people are often more vulnerable with one another—and, by extension, more empathetic—compared to in good or neutral times. At first, Scotty’s doctor in the hospital, Dr. Francis, is vague about Scotty’s condition and continually assures Howard and Ann that Scotty will wake up. Howard and Ann don’t understand what’s happening and are increasingly frustrated by Dr. Francis’s lack of communication. The couple is left out of the doctors’ conversations, and no one at the hospital attempts to connect or empathize with them while they are in this waiting period. Only when Scotty has died does Dr. Francis fully describe his own confusion about what has happened and express his compassion for the grieving parents. Dr. Francis can freely communicate his empathy for the couple now because he is going through a version of the couple’s traumatic experience as well by losing such a young patient unexpectedly. It’s this shared experience of sudden loss that breaks down the usually stiff, formal patient-doctor dynamic and allows the doctor to see and treat the family as humans.

Throughout the story, Ann and Howard go from being unable to connect with strangers to having emotional conversations with them. The limbo state while Scotty is asleep is a transitional phase, in which Ann and Howard begin to connect with people (like the family in the waiting room) over their shared pain but are unable to fully communicate their feelings, because they haven’t yet been entirely opened up to the empathy that Scotty’s death triggers in them. At the end of the story, they manage to empathize even with the baker, because their personal tragedy has allowed them to share their sadness, and understand other people’s sadness better in turn.