Summary Of Caviar By T. C. Boyle

T.C. Boyle’s short essay, “Caviar”, follows the story of couple, Nathaniel, and his wife, Marie, who attempt to procreate, but are left resort to surrogacy through Dr. Ziss’ recommendation after Marie’s infertility is discovered. As told from the perspective of the fisherman, Nathaniel, explores his sexual urges through an extramarital affair with his son’s surrogate mother, Wendy, as she boards with them during the early stages of pregnancy. The reading ends with Nathaniel assaulting Dr. Ziss after finding him to be in a romantic relationship with Wendy, thus arrested and kicked out of his own household by his wife (Boyle 80-92). At face value, this story could be simply interpreted to being about loyalty as it relates to relationships and

I was on the wrong rung of the socioeconomic ladder, if you know what I mean. My father was a commercial fisherman on the Hudson, till the PCBs got to him, my mother did typing and filing down at the lumberyard, and my grandmother crocheted doilies and comforters for sale to rich people. Me, took over my father’s trade. I inherited the shack at the end of the pier, the leaky fourteen-foot runabout with the thirty-five-horse Evinrude motor and the seine that’s been in the family for three generations. Also, I got to move into the old man’s house when when he passed on, and he left me his stamp collection and the keys to his ’62 Rambler,

This choice results in the suggestion that he is ashamed and apologetic for his perspective that he himself believes to be invalid due to his status as a fisherman in comparison to the people his story revolves around. Due to the narrator’s self-deprecating tone as he discusses how his socioeconomic status formation, it is apparent that Nathaniel weighs his value in terms of how his perceived in social hierarchy, which is where he has had a lack of power. The relationship between the narrator’s class and identity is iterated throughout the “Caviar” as he purposely points out aspects of others and their that suggest their social rank such as when he notices Dr. Ziss’s car and describes it tone that suggest regalness in contrast to that of his own where he says “Mercedes, unmistakable gray,gleaming at the curb like a smack in the