Carver

And this creates a sense of detachment from the story and its characters.
             The story may seem simple, but it isn't: hidden messages lie underneath the simple story line. It is the reader's job to uncover these messages. In "Fat" we notice that the I-narrator is not concerned by the man's weight but by something else (cf. sub), it is the reader's task to dissect this. Mrs Chapman asserts that there is no narrative presence telling the reader what to think about the situation. So the reader must use his own logic to interpret the scene and to discover the hidden messages. An example can be found in "Fat" where Carver stops at the point when everything is about to be uncovered:.
             My life is going to change. I feel it. (p69).
             We as readers must use our imagination to fill in the gaps. We can say that Carver's style is simple on the surface, but underneath you can see that something else is going on.
             Carver's characters are ordinary persons with an ordinary job in an ordinary situation. "Fat" tells the story of a waitress who serves an obese customer. But this simple event may well change the waitress" life. So Carver converts a dull situation into a life changing experience for the characters. If we compare this short story to "Cathedral", we can assume that Carver's characters are mainly lonely personalities without any ability to express themselves:.
             You don't have any friends. (p359).
             According to Mrs Chapman , Carver throws the reader directly into the middle of the scene. He doesn't give information about the characters and their past history. Instead, we get fragments of their lives: .
             The one who chases Rudy? (p65).
             3. Story-telling.
             As Miss Van de Perre has suggested, Carver uses the technique of the frame story in "Fat". According to Hendrik van Gorp , a frame story is a story that frames one or more other stories. The author uses this technique in order to create another perspective on the events, to create a sense of detachment and to increase the emotional involvement of the I-narrator.