Preview

what we talk about when we talk about love

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
591 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
what we talk about when we talk about love
We Talk about When We Talk About Love Literary Analysis
Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” uses past relationships and experiences to exemplify the true meaning of love. Nick, the narrator, sits back and observes the feedback from Mel who is confused and lost. The way Mel and his friends try to figure out what love truly means becomes far more perplexed from when the sun is shining brightly to when it goes down and the conversation reaches silence. The sun is shining brightly through the window while the group of friends gathers around the kitchen table. The sun radiates joy in the room and sets the mood for the casual conversation about love. While engaging in conversation about the meaning of what “real love” truly is Mel imposes the thought of love being “nothing less than spiritual.” Terri thinks differently. The first bottle of gin is going around the table and they all seem to be in their right minds. Pretty soon the day will go by and the excitement of the conversation will fade away as the sun slowly goes down and leaves the room. Carver describes Terri’s relationship as abusive and that is how she thought love should be. She feels that love includes the role of being care-taker, and proclaims that her ex “didn’t have anyone else”. Terri thinks that love is a gamble and different people show love in different ways. A person should accept it in the way that it is given. As the conversation progresses they dig out deeper thoughts about what love can possibly mean. The drinks continue and bits and pieces about the realization of love come about, and “their intoxication mirrors” which endows them to more confusion about the meaning of love and “inability to define it”. Sitting around a kitchen table discussing past relationships and what love is could be an everyday thing from some, but thing is they are all bewildered and while just sitting there the drinking gets much heavier, and the sun starts to drain out the room,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    She met a charming person, Jody, who swept her away with promises and love. A few years into the marriage with Jody, Janie realized that he is just a power hungry person and wanted her to act like a mayor’s wife and not being herself. She did not like the fact that she was missing out on a lot of things mainly, love. They split apart bitterly and Jody dies of an illness. Janie had wealth and power at that point. Janie then comes across Tea Cup, someone who is 12 years younger than her and is easily attracted to him. She thought “He could be a bee to a blossom – a pear tree blossom in the spring” (104). With tea cup, she ends up figuring out what actual love is. Tea Cup introduces her to a life filled with fun and normal human emotions. The author writes “Janie learned what it felt like to be jealous” (136). Through her life, Janie slowly understands that one’s independence is more important than anything else. “Dats de way it looks. Still and all, she’s her own woman” (111). She also gets a taste of real love in her third attempt. Throughout the book, the author emphasizes on the opportunity women have…

    • 406 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Summary: Soop Notes

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Father is concerned about the drinking and also about the mother allowing the daughter to drink. Mother and daughter report having a close relationship, and mother and father report being distant. Mother and daughter believe the father uses them as trophies. Daughter expresses having a good relationship with her mother, but that her father does not know her or have any idea of who she is and what she wants. Father states he expresses his love by providing for his family.…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    When Laird comes home to die, Janet becomes his caregiver. Laird has full-time hospice nursing care, but it is Janet who truly cares for him. Prior to Laird’s illness and move home, Janet had no strong friendships or connections. Martin is distant, physically and emotionally, Anne is married with her own children, and Laird is off living his life. When Laird moves home, Janet yearns to talk to him and get to know him. She wants to know about his life, what he likes, if he loved and was loved. Laird, in turn, wants to know about her, where she came from, and what she enjoys. Laird finally opens up to Janet, and she becomes infatuated with him and their conversations. She changes her schedule, altering her routine to follow Laird’s so she can be there to talk with him. She aches for him so much she describes herself as, “behaving like a girl with a crush.” Janet had years earlier resigned herself to the fact Martin was not the lover she had hoped for. After reconnecting with Laird, she realizes he is the love of her life, not a romantic or sexual love, but a true longing to be cherished, cared for, and to receive the same in return. Laird is actually interested in what she likes. He asks her about her favorite authors and what she wanted to be when she grew up. They develop a bond with almost flirtatious conversation neither of them have had before. Their relationship becomes healing to them both. Janet is accepting of Laird’s death. She is comforted by finally being able to love and be loved, to actually have a fulfilling connection with someone. In the same way, Laird is loved and comforted as he is dying. He does not die alone, but peacefully, as he listens to the sound of his mother’s voice. Janet, by reconnecting with Laird, is able to accept his death without…

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Again, in the scene described in the last paragraph, when the girl stands up, she walks into the sunlight to look at the prolific section of the valley. The sunlight represents her hope of a happy future with her child. Furthermore, when the man calls her back he asks her specifically to come back into the shade. The shade which represents the concealment of their affair and the sorrow of losing her baby. This element of the sunlight versus the shade reveals more of the girl’s emotions to the reader.…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pieces of April

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Love is the emotional investment that pushes people to their limits. This is demonstrated in the film “Pieces of April”, when our protagonist April is pushed to do something for the sake of love, even though she dreaded every moment of it. She tries to prepare a Thanksgiving meal for her and her family with hopes to be reunited after years of negligence. Although she tries to conceal her exhilaration it is clear and obvious that she is eager for her family’s arrival. Her attempt at cooking a meal for her family and going through so much difficulty is not so literal. It represents the notion of how love can push people into doing impetuous things. The deficient love of a girl for her family can make her do so much. The relationship between April and her mother, Joy, resemble the relationship of Tiffany Chan and her mother from the short story "Of Kin and Kind". Both the mother and daughter relationship is very rigid and tense. Tiffany claims that her and her mother may be of the same blood but they are anything but alike, by declaring "We were kin, but less than kind". This quote can also reflect April’s view on her and her mother’s relationship. We all believe that our similarities brings us close and our difference separates us without knowing that the only thing still holding our ties is the love we have for each other. That love is what makes us forget the conflicts and disagreements we may have and reminds us that no matter how different we are, we learn to accept and love each other. Bobby, April’s boyfriend, also illustrates how love can give people unbelievable strength and make them overlook the concept of possible. He claims his mother lifted the car to save his life after they had been in an accident. He carries his belief and shows what a person can accomplish if they carry love within themselves, “When you have love you do things you never thought you could. She had a moment of unbelievable strength because she had love”. The power…

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I felt the world around me falling apart, the life I had finally built up slowly starting to crumble on top of me, slowly choking the happiness out of me. In the years following 1901, I relied on alcohol to sustain myself each day. From that particular incident, Carol and I no longer felt the same love we felt years ago. We rarely talked, becoming strangers who did not even bother to greet each other on Main Street.…

    • 690 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “That wolf cries every single night. It’s lost. We’re lost too, son. We ain’t cut out for this.” the one-armed father bemoans as he recollects the maternal death of his exuberant, fair-skinned wife. Her cries for helps, which slipped past the confines of her clenched teeth, cemented her legacy and her life. Cassius, a being who never meant any member of his true family, found only one source of reciprocated love and it emanated from one being- Clara, his wife. Following her death, everyday has been an opportunity to escape the confines of Charleston, South Carolina.…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Romantic Marriage “thrives on the spark of love that never dies.” In Loh’s essay the romantic marriage is not really a type that can stand all along, it is instead an ingredient that helps the growth of any relationship; and a good judgment of whether the fondness and the interest level is solid and strong or needed some enhancement; It is also the on going process of mutual love progress for one another, not for a moment but perpetually. Loh mentioned that, “I had an entirely manageable life and planned to go to my grave taking with me, as I do most nights to my bed, a glass of merlot and a good book”. Basically she’s saying that the absence of her husband’s romance in her marriage has been replaced by a glass of merlot and a good book most of the night. Romance, in any “good relationship,” should be identifying at any time. However, the romantic marriage, finds its way into Harris’s essay; she describes a couple that believes their relationship is very romantic besides the “trek” on how long it takes them to see each other. Peter Horan 27, and his girlfriend Afton Vermeer 25, feels connected besides the fact they live 14.35 miles apart a distance according to the passage that can be done in 20 minutes drive, yet it takes them three subways and an hour…

    • 1284 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Love is an emotion that varies from couple to couple, we can see this is both “The Storm” and in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” In these stories we have three different couples who are all very much in love. In “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” we have Mel and Terri who have been married for four years and are already pretty comfortable in their relationship. Also there are Nick and Laura who have only been married for a year and a half. In “The Storm” we have Alcee and Calixta who are lovers who each have their own spouses. After reading the stories we are left to reflect on not only their relationships but also on our own.…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The protagonist, Janie, is jettisoning the materialistic desires of Nanny, Logan and Jody. Then she runs away with her love, Tea Cake; and falls into the predicament of an impending hurricane. As the rising action continues it hits a climax point where Janie has some conflict with Tea Cake that forces her to face an obstacle that she has never faced before. In the process of this encounter, Janie had to choose between the love of her life, whom was bent on killing her, or death. With Janie’s decision to shoot Tea Cake demonstrates that she has the strength to save herself even though it means killing the man she loves. The white women’s support of Janie points toward the importance of individuality as a means of breaking down stereotypes.…

    • 638 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Patricelli, Kathryn. "Mental Health Care, Inc." Mental Health Care, Inc. Mental Health Care, Inc., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2012. <http://www.mhcinc.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc>.…

    • 1041 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author envisions that there is no love in future nuclear relationships due to insensitivity and the inability to deeply analyze actions. When Mildred’s friends came over, Montag asked them about children; one of the women,…

    • 303 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Remember the Titans

    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages

    After the initial shock of being told the news of her husband’s death, she began to see life like she had never seen it before. Mrs. Mallard gazed out the window as she saw the tops of the trees quiver with new spring life, saw a beautiful blue sky and listened as the breeze made a tune. All of these things are things she had never noticed before. She had been living her life for her husband, through her husband and not living a life of her own. There was a sense of entrapment in their marriage and when she received the news of her husband’s death, she felt a mix of emotions. She was in shock, she was sad and she was terrified because for the first time in her life, she was able to be free—“There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself.” But what was even more traumatizing than finding out about Mr. Mallards death, was seeing him walk through the doors; unharmed, alive and standing right before her.…

    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    (Carver, p657). That statement shows that Terri feels that he had true love for her because he was willing to kill himself when she left. Nick and Laura demonstrate that they think they know what love is through their actions throughout the story, and Laura stating, “Well, Nick and I know what love is” ( Carver, p659). They are newlyweds that haven’t really encountered relationship problems yet.…

    • 642 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Last Gods

    • 649 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “The hair of their bodies startles up. They cry in the tongue of the last gods, who refused to go, chose death, and shuddered in joy and shattered in pieces, bequeathing in their cries into the human mouth”. Here man and woman are in their natural state and a part of nature. It's about the perfect pleasure that is possible to receive from sharing our bodies with each other. It portrays a give and take relationship between the two bodies that are enjoying the most beautiful gift of heaven which is a love making in a perfect way.…

    • 649 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics