When We Talk About Love By Raymond Carver Analysis

As time passes in a relationship, it is inevitable that confrontations are bound to occur. Whether small disagreements created from minor issues, to mediocre arguments based on daily matters, to serious incidents that can reflect relationship taboos, it is a couple’s perception and understanding of each other that can strengthen or weaken their union. The poem “How It Will End” by Denise Duhamel portrays two couples involved in similar matters as those previously described. One couple is having, what appears to be, an argument at the beach and the second couple is watching them from afar, as they’re on a boardwalk. As the poem progresses, the second couple’s assumptions of what

People cheat, lie, undermine, and backstab all the time. People fall in and out of love constantly in a rapidly changing world. In Ray Bradbury’s “utopian” future world, marriage is almost the same. When Montag is trying to remember where and when he met Mildred, he can not, ““I don’t know,” she said. He was cold. “Can’t you remember.”” (40 Bradbury). This sudden revelation of his former blindness in his marriage comes from the attainment of knowledge, without knowledge marriage isn’t marriage. Knowledge is the true power in marriage, it keeps people together because when you have the capacity to think you have the ability to feel for another, which is necessary for a healthy relationship. This necessary factor of love is completely absent in this dystopian

Alain de Botton in “How Fiction Ruined Love” says that our culture’s infatuation on over climatic, romanticized love stories has a shock on our actual lives. In modern culture, few stories manage to convey the complications of a long-lasting relationship. Namely, people often go into relationships with unrealistic and high expectations. Few examples of this are when the going gets tough, couples often clamp under the pressure of everyday life. Ultimately, Alain de Botton argues that love is so much more that just sexual feeling and passion that romantic novels and movies portray it to be.

Raymond Carver wrote "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" in 1981, by doing this Carver also created the character Mel. This short story is written in first person narration from Nick, one of Mel's friends. Both of their wives, Terri (Mel) and Laura (Nick) are also in the kitchen having the love conversation with Mel and Nick. Mel is a forty five year old, tall, curly headed cardiologist. Mel also has an ex-wife with whom he had children with. Mel is related to the theme of Love being undefinable by bringing up the conversation of love, talking about several examples of what love is or is not, trying to prove his point even though he does not completely understand what love is, and being an example of undefinable love himself.

Love makes us do crazy things. It makes us become people we never thought we were. Love gives us an ultimatum about our life. Love is a powerful bond and wicked curse. When we love, we love hard. We will do anything for love and to be loved. In “My Sister’s Marriage,” Cynthia Marshall Rich presents the different views of love upon similar yet different characters. Two sisters, who share a loving yet manipulative Father show the different ways love affects us. Sarah-Ann and Olive have many similar and different relationships with love, their dreams, and their traits.

While being in a dark place for a long time there usually is a time in life where it turns to light. You go through things in life where it brings you down and shows you better things that can happen in the future. That is what Authors Bobbie Ann Mason and Raymond Carver shows us in their stories. They explain relationships and how they are expressed differently by each and every one of us. The relationships between man and woman show us the differences between them and how they react with one another. Relationships complicate life and show great things that come out of them. The different ways people describe love it quite strange by showing abuse, loss, and emotion. In these two stories the authors explain how people

We live in a society that has increasingly stomped on love, depicting it as cruel, superficial and full of complications. Nowadays it is easy for people to claim that they are in love, even when their actions say otherwise, and it is just as easy to claim that they are not when they really are. Real love is difficult to find and keeping it alive is even harder, especially when one must overcome their own anxieties and uncertainties. This is the main theme present in Russell Banks’ short story “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story,” as well as in “The Fireman’s Wife,” written by Richard Bausch. These narratives, although similar in some aspects, are completely different types of love stories.

Mel’s inability to create a clear connotation for love leads him to question certain aspects of life. Mel has a lot to say about love and there is no doubt in his mind that we spend our whole lives learning about what it actually is. He believes that no one is exactly experienced when it comes to love, "What do any of us really know about love?" Mel said. "It seems to me we're just beginners at love." (Carver 556) Although he cannot define it he has had experiences that help him understand what true love looks like in a relationship. A particular experience that had an effect on Mel, was when he treated an old couple at the hospital. They were badly injured in a

Love cannot be defined in one sentence or even a paragraph. Every human has his or her own definition of love because people usually define love based on their cultures, backgrounds, social classes, educations, and their societies. In this essay, the main point will be the different kinds of love that Carver illustrates in his story “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love.” In Carver’s story, there are some points that I can relate to my personal experience. There are a few characteristics and symbols in the story that are really important to understand in order to define what a real love is and find the intention thrown out the story. These characteristics includes, Mel, Terri and Ed and Terri’s relationship. Furthermore, symbols

After analyzing Raymond Carver's "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," it is easy to see that there are several different ideas concerning true love that the characters in the story are in dispute over. Terri's idea of real love is the most valid out of the group at the table. All of the members of the group are rather confused as to what real love is. Terri is included as one of the confused. However, I believe that she is the closest to understanding what love is. A key piece of evidence demonstrating her understanding of love is her remark to Laura and Nick. She scolds the couple for basing their relationship on physical aspects, rather than emotion or passion. Terri, like the rest of the party, is on her second marriage.

     In contrast to these fairly pessimistic views on love, the author describes an instance in which a couple found true love. Mel tells an anecdote of an old couple that was admitted to the emergency room after a very bad car accident. The two people were wrapped up in full body casts, and as a result they could not see each other. Mel noticed that the old man was very sad, even

In Raymond Carver’s story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” there is a wide array of opinions concerning the true definition of love. I believe that the character with the most absurd idea of love is Mel. Mel is Terri’s second husband. He claims to only believe in spiritual love. In his past, Mel spent “five years in seminary.” This is obviously what he bases his idea upon. Mel declares that if he could go back in time, he would enjoy being a knight in armor to shield him from other people. This reveals to me that Mel is emotionally closed off and concealed from other people. Furthermore, as seen through his wife, Terri, Mel does not have the passion inside him that is necessary to experience love. The only love that Mel does experience is the love toward his children, but that is love in a different sense. Loving his children is a natural instinct. They are born into his care, and are made with his own blood. His love for them was not searched for. It just came to be when they were born. Mel’s relationship with Terri, or any other women that he may have encountered in the past is distant and indifferent as to who they are inside. Mel’s ideas toward love are

The short story ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,’ by Raymond Carver, is set in a scene where there are two couples drinking gin and having small talk about the nature of love. The conversation is a little sloppy due to the fact that the couples are intoxicated and the characters make some comments which could either be meaningless because of the excessive alcohol intake, or it could be the characters’ true feelings. Overall, the author uses this conversation to show that when a relationship first begins, the people involved may have some misconceptions about their love, but this love will eventually die off or can develop into something much more meaningful. Raymond Carver sets the scene with two couples sitting around a table drinking a cheap gin and making small talk. The real story begins when the topic of love comes up.

The story is about love, yes it’s even in the title but it’s much deeper than that. The hospital for instance ties the definition of Mel’s love and Terri’s love together. They have very different views on love but their common ground lies within the hospital. Ed (Terri’s ex-lover) ended up in the hospital because he tried to commit suicide and she viewed this as love.

In the poem, The Love song, written by T.S. Elliot, J Alfred Prufrock is a man who is very lonely and insecure. He goes throughout his life wishing for a change, but never stepping up to the plate and actually making a change. The title of the poem portrays to the reader that the poem is going to be full of love and romance. The reader soon found out later that the poem is just the opposite from the title, a sad, lonesome man who is not only lacking love, but also lacking self confidence and self esteem.