Analytical essay of One More Thing
This essay is going to focus on different things in relation to the minimalistic short story written by Raymond Carver; at first the setting, and later the role the iceberg-theory plays.
The story begins in medias res as we immediately jumps into the action "L.D.'s wife, Maxine, told him to get out the night she came home from work and found L.D. drunk again and being abusive to Rae".
Most of the setting descriptions happens at first, when we are shortly introduced to the characters and the plot. We are introduced to L.D., who is found drunk again by his wife Maxine, as he was being abusive towards their daughter Rae.
The whole story takes place in their home, from where L.D. is being kicked out of by Maxine. At first L.D. isn't interested in moving out and leaving the house, but after he had thrown a glass of pickles out of window and the family had threatened to call the police on him. Perhaps L.D. realizes it is the wiser decision to surrender, at least soon after he agrees to leave the house. L.D. is obviously angry by the decision his family made for him, and this gives some indication towards the fact that L.D. doesn't want to leave his house, and his family behind. But as his family has proper cause to call the police, he is better off just leaving for now.
Later he has picked his things and is about to leave the house. He says the house is a 'nuthouse' and that they will never see him again. Maxine said it's his fault that it is a nuthouse, and L.D. puts his things on the floor and faces them, seemingly ready to attack them. The girls moved back, and L.D. picked up his things again. L.D. wanted to say one more thing, but couldn't think of anything. This is how the story ends. His hesitation about leaving the house shows again some indication that he really doesn't want to leave, as he's trying to postpone the inevitable.
His attitude changes when the family blames him. There might be some truth to that, since he's the one who's drunk again, but he turns rather a little aggressive upon hearing that from Maxine. He takes a stance and the two grills move back; what's to interpret from this is that L.D. is considering throwing a punch "He drew himself up and faced them. They moved back". He doesn't do that though, and instead picks up his items. He want to say one more thing, but can't think of anything. He had no problem blaming them just before, so when he can't think of anything, it's likely because he wasn't going to say something along the same lines. He might have been looking for words such as "I'm sorry, I love you, this is my fault". But as he in that moment maybe realizes that he's the drunk who was just about to assault his family, and knew it wouldn't matter, and just let it be.
L.D. didn't want to leave 'the scene', the house, and tries to postpone the inevitable and blames it all on the family, while they like wise blame him. Things heated up when it looked like L.D. was about to throw a punch, but didn't.

The iceberg-theory is commonly used in minimalistic texts. The writer tells 1/10th of the story, and we are to interpret the last 9/10ths with what's handed to us black on white. This theory applies itself several times throughout the text One More Thing.
In the beginning we are told L.D. is found drunk again when Maxine comes home from work, and this results in him being kicked out of the house. That's what we are told, but the text says more than that. It can be interpreted that L.D. is drunk often, and this has been a recurring problem in the family. The fact that he is drunk as Maxine comes home, means that he must have gotten drunk during the early afternoon, which means he most likely didn't spend his day at work unlike Maxine.
Later in the text L.D. has gone to a room to pack his stuff: "He made his way into the bedroom and took one of her suitcases...". The fact that he takes on of her suitcases shows that he doesn't own one himself, and most likely not a lot much else in the house, except for the clothes he packs: "...and began putting his underwear, his trousers, his shirts, his sweaters, his old leather belt with the brass buckle, his socks, and everything else he had".
Here he lists all the different items that L.D. is putting in the suitcase. Everything is plainly described, except for his old leather belt with the brass buckle. With the use of descriptive words and adjectives Raymond Carver paints a clear picture of what that belt looks like. With the iceberg-theory that is because there is some underlying meaning with the belt. We are told earlier that he was being abusive towards Rae, perhaps it was this belt he had used throughout the years to punish Rae with.

When he is packing his stuff we are also told that he had gone to college: "He had gone to college too". It is interesting that the story mentions how he had gone to college too, because it underlines that he had the qualifications to succeed, but yet ended up suffering from alcoholism. Because we have no descriptions of how he turned into an alcoholic we can, because of the iceberg-theory, interpret this.

One more thing written by Raymond Carver takes place in the house of which L.D., his wife, and daughter lives in. Maxine and Rae wants to kick L.D. out of the house, his home. He shows signs of not wanting to, by hesitating and postponing it by talking and blaming the two girls for the situation. Because this is a minimalistic text, it only describes just enough for the reader to know what's going on. With the help of the iceberg-theory we can interpret many scenes and comments in the story, to reach an even deeper level in the text, and discover the feelings of the characters.