They're Not Your Husband
This is what we are told about Earl Ober.
What is that he is unemployed, a salesman, a sorry and dissatisfied person, a laughable character and not particularly good to his wife or interested in his children?
This is the exact date when the thirteen colonies on the eastern seaboard of the United States wanted to break free from the ties with Great Britain.
What is the fourth of July 1776?
This is where the short story takes place.
What is an unspecified and rather small house in small-town America with too little light and such a suffocating atmosphere that hope and dreams have died?
This is the problem in this sentence: "The students were unusual quiet during the graduation speech."
What is the adjective 'unusual'?
This is the name of the blind man in the story.
What is Robert?
This is our immediate impression of Doreen, the wife of Earl Ober.
What is good since she is the breadwinner of the family, concerned about her children and tolerent when it comes to her husband and making their relationship work?
These are some of the best-known words of the Declaration of Independence, constituting the foundation of the American Dream itself.
What is "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"?
This is what we are told about the weather conditions in the opening lines of the story – and the importance of the weather to the story.
What is that the weather is changing from snow into (dirty) water, symbolically reflecting the end of the relationship (and the child) in the family?
This is the problem in this sentence: "The money could not be divided because the pirates had not yet counted them."
What is that money is treated as if it were a countable noun?
This is a definition of the noun 'prejudice'.
What is 'an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race or their supposed characteristics'?
This is what we are told about the setting of the story.
What is that we are in a working-class family in small-town America, in an unspecified American house and a diner far away from the American Dream?
This is the principal author of the Declaration of Independence - and the third president of the United States.
Who is Thomas Jefferson?
These are some of the typical Carver-characteristics of the story.
What is a dysfunctional relationship among average Americans and a minimalistic way of writing, i.e an economy and terseness of language that allows an uncomfortable, inarticulate silence to lurk just beneath the surface, a silence that mirrors the often painful inarticulateness of Carver's characters?
This is the problem in this sentence: "She managed to pass the test in spite of that she had a severe cold and a splitting headache."
What is that a preposition ('of') governs a 'that'- clause?
These are some of the characteristics of minimalism in Carver's text.
What is - among many other characteristics - sparse language, ordinary characters, surface-level dialogue, open-endedness and a focus on the concrete?
This is the atmosphere that permeates [gennemsyrer] the entire story.
What is an atmosphere of tension, disappointment and disillusionment?
This is the British king at the time of the War of Independence.
Who is King George III?
This is what Carver would like to tell us through his short story.
What is that some people act so selfishly and so full of anger, hatred, disappointment and disillusionment that even children are destroyed in the process?
This is the problem in this sentence: "In his new book has Ian McEwan portrayed a female judge who gets emotionally involved with her client."
What is the subject-verbal word order?
This is what the cathedral symbolises in Carver's text.
What is – among many ideas – vision beyond sight, connection and empathy, spiritual awakening, breaking boundaries and art as liberation?
This is what Carver tells us about relationships in working-class America through this story.
What is a disappointing (and dysfunctional?) marriage, in which the characters are failing to reach the goals of their obscure belongings - and where it seems very difficult to leave and move on alone?
The most famous and prominent signature on the Declaration of Independence belongs to this man.
Who is John Hancock?
These are some of the symbols in the story.
What are - among others - the bad weather (the snow melting), the baby, the light and darkness and the flowerpot?
This is the problem in this sentence: "The group of students had buyed tickets permitting them to travel on the train to London."
What is the verb 'buyed'?
This is how we can see in the story that Carver has met Tess Galagher and has changed his outlook on life, becoming slightly more optimistic and hopeful.
What is that the first-person narrator and the blind man touch hands while drawing a cathedral together at the end of the text?