“A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver
E825120
“A Small, Good Thing” is a poignant short story by Raymond Carver that explores grief, miscommunication, and human connection in the aftermath of a child’s tragic accident.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| “A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T9854519 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: “A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver Context triple: [Short Cuts, basedOn, “A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver]
-
A.
short story "In the Event of My Father’s Death"
"In the Event of My Father’s Death" is a short story by Roxane Gay that appears in her collection Difficult Women, exploring themes of family, grief, and complex emotional inheritance.
-
B.
A Christmas Memory
A Christmas Memory is a nostalgic autobiographical short story by Truman Capote that recounts his childhood holiday experiences with an eccentric older cousin in rural Alabama.
-
C.
“A Hero Sits Next Door”
“A Hero Sits Next Door” is an early episode of the animated sitcom Family Guy in which the Griffins meet their new neighbor Joe Swanson, a paraplegic police officer who becomes Peter’s friend.
-
D.
A Very Short Story
"A Very Short Story" is a brief World War I–themed narrative by Ernest Hemingway, known for its concise style and emotional understatement, later collected in his book *In Our Time*.
-
E.
Interpreter of Maladies
Interpreter of Maladies is an acclaimed short story collection by Jhumpa Lahiri that explores themes of Indian and Indian-American identity, displacement, and human relationships.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: “A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver Target entity description: “A Small, Good Thing” is a poignant short story by Raymond Carver that explores grief, miscommunication, and human connection in the aftermath of a child’s tragic accident.
-
A.
short story "In the Event of My Father’s Death"
"In the Event of My Father’s Death" is a short story by Roxane Gay that appears in her collection Difficult Women, exploring themes of family, grief, and complex emotional inheritance.
-
B.
A Christmas Memory
A Christmas Memory is a nostalgic autobiographical short story by Truman Capote that recounts his childhood holiday experiences with an eccentric older cousin in rural Alabama.
-
C.
“A Hero Sits Next Door”
“A Hero Sits Next Door” is an early episode of the animated sitcom Family Guy in which the Griffins meet their new neighbor Joe Swanson, a paraplegic police officer who becomes Peter’s friend.
-
D.
A Very Short Story
"A Very Short Story" is a brief World War I–themed narrative by Ernest Hemingway, known for its concise style and emotional understatement, later collected in his book *In Our Time*.
-
E.
Interpreter of Maladies
Interpreter of Maladies is an acclaimed short story collection by Jhumpa Lahiri that explores themes of Indian and Indian-American identity, displacement, and human relationships.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | short story ⓘ |
| adaptationNote | expands and revises the earlier story "The Bath" ⓘ |
| adaptedFrom | "The Bath" ⓘ |
| author | Raymond Carver ⓘ |
| collectedIn |
"Where I'm Calling From"
ⓘ
linked to:
Where I'm Calling From
|
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| criticalReputation | one of Raymond Carver's most acclaimed stories ⓘ |
| explores |
the difficulty of communication in crisis
ⓘ
the limits of medical reassurance ⓘ the possibility of connection between strangers ⓘ |
| firstPublicationType | short story collection ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn |
"Cathedral"
ⓘ
linked to:
Cathedral
|
| genre |
realist fiction
ⓘ
short fiction ⓘ |
| hasSubject |
parents coping with the death of a child
ⓘ
working-class life in America ⓘ |
| includedIn | Raymond Carver's later, less heavily edited stories ⓘ |
| includedInCollection |
"Cathedral"
ⓘ
linked to:
Cathedral
|
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryDevice |
realistic dialogue
ⓘ
symbolism of food as solace ⓘ understatement ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | minimalism ⓘ |
| mainCharacter |
Ann Weiss
ⓘ
Howard Weiss ⓘ |
| narrativePointOfView | third-person limited ⓘ |
| notableCharacter | the baker ⓘ |
| plotElement |
a young boy is hit by a car on his birthday
ⓘ
the baker offers food and comfort to the grieving parents ⓘ the boy later dies in the hospital ⓘ the parents confront the baker about the calls ⓘ the parents receive anonymous phone calls from the baker ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1983 ⓘ |
| publisherOfFirstCollection | Alfred A. Knopf ⓘ |
| relatedWork | "The Bath" ⓘ |
| setting | an unnamed American city ⓘ |
| theme |
compassion
ⓘ
everyday tragedy ⓘ grief ⓘ human connection ⓘ isolation ⓘ loss ⓘ miscommunication ⓘ parental love ⓘ |
| titleRefersTo | the comfort of sharing food in a time of grief ⓘ |
| tone |
empathetic
ⓘ
somber ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: “A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver Description of subject: “A Small, Good Thing” is a poignant short story by Raymond Carver that explores grief, miscommunication, and human connection in the aftermath of a child’s tragic accident.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.