In the short story “The Third Thing That Killed My Father,” Raymond Carver explores the life of the town outcast. Through the observations of a young boy and his father Carver tells the story of a man caught in himself, and captures the true essence of a mans character and his conflicts. Dummy the town outcast finds himself in a struggle to protect the one thing that makes him happy, a school of black bass. …showed first 75 words of 721 total…

…showed last 75 words of 721 total…the life of his wife and himself, but it was also selfish of the community to blame the incident entirely on Dummy when the whole town was at fault. What I mean is they made him an outcast, and maybe if the towns people where sensitive to his needs this would never have happened. Dummy did this not only to free himself from stereotypes of the town, but also for the love of the fish.