The First Thing the Baby Did Wrong by Donald Barthelme

Here is a brief, to the point review I found online of this Donald Barthelme postmodern fiction: "This short story is the worst one I have ever read. It is sheit. Like the author held a sheet of paper under a cows bumhole and allowed it to constipate on the page. After that, the author dusted off the sheit and sold it as a short story with actual meaning and depth. What is wrong with this world?"

In response to this blistering pronouncement, another critic offered the following: "Ordinarily I wouldn't agree with someone as illiterate as yourself, but having to write an essay on this story tomorrow I must say that it truly is "sheit."

I strongly suspect many readers have likewise had their ire raised since the story's first publication back in 1983. To my critical sensibilities, such powerful sentiments must be countered by detailed analysis if we are to have any chance of extracting literary gold from this Barthelme flash fiction. Thus, to this end, I offer the following comments linked with a number of direct quotes from the story itself:

"The first thing the baby did wrong was to tear pages out of her books. So we made a rule that each time she tore a page out of a book she had to stay alone in her room for four hours, behind the closed door." --------- The narrator here is the father. Why doesn't he seek out the reason for his daughter's behavior? Why is his first reaction to set down a rule? Not to mention the fact he is dealing with a fourteen month old baby.

"She was tearing out about a page a day, in the beginning, and the rule worked fairly well, although the crying and screaming from behind the closed door were unnerving. We reasoned that that was the price you had to pay, or part of the price you had to pay". ------------- Ha! As far as the father is concerned, life is comprised of nastiness, crying, yelling, crapulousness and misery. You simply have to learn to stomach it. After all, rules are rules.

"And then as time went on we began getting days when she tore out three or four pages, which put her alone in her room for as much as sixteen hours at a stretch, interfering with normal feeding and worrying my wife. But I felt that if you made a rule you had to stick to it, had to be consistent, otherwise they get the wrong idea." ----------- His usage of "they get the wrong idea" is completely warped logic but parents can go to great lengths to justify their own sadism.

"Her room was very nice, with a nice wooden rocking horse and practically a hundred dolls and stuffed animals. Lots of things to do in that room if you used your time wisely, puzzles and things." ---------- Such a distorted sense of values - as if an abundance of material stuff can compensate for lack of parental affection and mature understanding.

"The baby's name was Born Dancin'. We gave the baby some of our wine, red, whites and blue, and spoke seriously to her. But it didn't do any good." -------- Extreme crudity but a prime American solution to cover over abuse: alcohol. In a few more years little Born Dancin' will surely graduate to bourbon and beer.

"But things didn't improve. The baby would come out of her room like a bat out of hell and rush to the nearest book, Goodnight Moon or whatever, and begin tearing pages out of it hand over fist." --------- Surprise, surprise - confinement and abuse lead to violence. And what becomes of this cycle of abuse and violence? Donald Barthelme provides a nice twist of irony at the end to let us know the family that destroys together stays together.

Link to the story online: http://jessamyn.com/barth/baby.html ( )