What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver - Research Paper Example

?Sebastian What We Talk About When We Talk About Love In the short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by Raymond Carver, two married couples, Mel and Terri and Nick and Laura sit around a kitchen table at the McGinnis’ apartment in Albuquerque, New Mexico, drinking gin and discussing about the meaning of love. Mel McGinnis is a forty-five year old cardiologist and Terri is his second wife. Both have been married for four years and have been together for five. Nick, the narrator, and Laura are also married and have been together for only eighteen months. In this short story, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver uses symbolism, language and gestures to examine the different kinds of love – spiritual, intellectual, romantic, sensual, brutal, possessive, unrequited and parental love - in order to find the meaning of true love. It is interesting to note that the setting of the story is limited both in terms of time and place. The action of the story takes place as the couples sit around the kitchen table over the course of an evening. No one gets up to do anything else except to get out a second bottle of gin. This “limited” setting is balanced with the characters’ limited understanding of what “love” is all about. No one seems to have a firm understanding of what love really is. Each person has his own definition of love. For Mel, love is something spiritual, Terri associates love with violence and possessiveness while Nick and Laura delight in romantic and physical love. At the start of the story, Nick, the narrator, explains that “The gin and tonic water kept going around, and we somehow got on the subject of love.” Mel insists that spiritual love is the only real love. He believes that “real love was nothing less than spiritual love.” His background Sebastian 2 as a seminarian before attending medical school has taught him this. The topic of conversation then turns to Terri’s abusive former husband, Ed. Both Terri and Mel debate whether or not Ed really loved Terri. Terri was once married to this man who abused her, a man who “went dragging me (Terri) around the living room. My head kept knocking on things ….(and Terry insists that) People are different , Mel. Sure, sometimes he may have acted crazy. Okay. But he loved me. In his own way maybe, but he loved me. There was love there Mel. Don’t say there wasn’t” (Carver). Mel insists that what Terri and her ex-husband had was not love. “I sure as hell wouldn’t call it love. …. If that’s love, you can have it” (Carver). Ed’s love for Terri was an obsession. He was so obsessed with Terri that he did not want anyone to have her if he could not have her for himself. Ed was a passionate man who could not control his emotions. He resorted to violence when he realized that he had lost Terri to another man. He attempted to kill her but ended up killing himself. Although Terri is a battered woman who was abused by her husband, she still loved him. When Ed was on his death bed, she loved him so much that she sat by his side until the moment he died. Mel finds it hard to believe that there could be love in a relationship where one partner physically abuses the other. He says his definition of love is different in which “you don’t try to kill people.” Laura, on the other hand, says that she is not in a position to judge whether it was love or not because she is not aware of the circumstances and does not really know what happened. This shows that one’s definition of love is not necessarily shared by others. Professor Fred Moramarco in his essay “Carver’s Couples Talk About Love”, is of the view that Carver’s stories express “puzzlement about the odd and battered condition of love in the contemporary world” - “a world of serial relationships where one year’s love is the next year’s courtroom adversary”. He further reiterates that “the transience of contemporary Sebastian 3 relationships creates a need for the characters – to redefine what love is and what it means to love someone. …… Though the myth of ‘eternal love’ persists, the reality of contemporary transitory relationships has shaken its foundations.” Jayne Anne Phillips in her article Carver Review – The Secret Places of the Heart claims that “Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love comes exactly to the point: In times of apocalypse, we speak not of love itself, but of the delicate structures and distortions that support love”. At one point, Mel asks a very pertinent question. “What do any of us really know about love?” He then goes on to define the different types of love. “It seems to me we’re just beginners at love. We say we love each other and we do, I don’t doubt it. … You know the kind of love I’m talking about now. Physical love, that impulse that drives you to someone special, as well as love of the other person’s being, his or her essence, as it were. Carnal love and, call it sentimental love, the day to day caring about the other person.” Mel, next, describes his relationship with his ex-wife. “There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I’d like to know. I wish someone could tell me” (Carver). Mel once loved his ex-wife dearly but their love did not last. His relationship with her was full of passion, as if he loved her “more than life itself” but when the passion is gone, he wants to have nothing to do with her. From the evidence in the short story, Mel’s relationship with Terri is headed in the same direction and will probably suffer a similar fate. In contrast to the volatile love between Mel and Terri, the author introduces another pair – Nick and Laura, who seem to be very much in love with one another. They have been together Sebastian 4 for only a year and a half. Nick describes how they met and fell in love. He says, “Laura is a legal secretary. We’d met in a professional capacity. Before we knew it, it was a courtship. She’s thirty-five, three years younger than I am. In addition to being in love, we like each other and enjoy one another’s company. She’s easy to be with” (Carver). As Professor Fred Moramarco in his essay “Carver’s Couples Talk About Love” comments, “This is the ideal contemporary relationship – between a man and a woman who are friends as well as lovers, and the operative word here is ‘easy’. We all seek easy relationships, but the real world keeps intruding. And, of course, the trouble with ‘easy’ relationships is embodied in the cliche, ‘easy come, easy go’.” Nick and Laura appear to be more compassionate and warm compared to Mel and Terri. Nick touches Laura throughout the duration of the short story. “I touched the back of Laura’s hand. She gave me a quick smile. I picked up Laura’s hand. It was warm, the nails polished, perfectly manicured. I encircled the broad wrist with my fingers, and I held her” (Carver). These instances of Nick touching, holding and kissing Laura are gestures that show that the couple is deeply in love. Their gestures rather than the language they use reveal a lot about their feelings for one another. Though the couples may talk all night about love, their words do not really matter. Carver shows the inadequacy of language in defining love. This is what Harold Bloom meant when he says in his book Raymond Carver, that “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love speaks less of love than of the inadequacy of language to convey those monumental abstractions that spring from ‘unbridled emotions’. ….. Language, Carver tells us, is both an obstacle and the means of confronting the obstacle” (Bloom 70). This is why when Mel asks the pertinent question “What do any of us really know about love?”, Carver offers no answers. When the characters talk about love, it is more about attempted suicide, jealousy, revenge, suffering Sebastian 5 and violence. Carver’s contention is that since love cannot be defined in words, it is better to leave it undefined or unexplained. Although the physical contact is almost absent in Mel’s and Terri’s relationship, there are a few times when Mel touches Terri in the story. The first time he touches Terri is after making fun of her view of love. He says that Terri is “romantic ….. (and) of the “kick-me-so-I’ll-know-you-love-me school”. In comparison to Nick and Laura, Mel’s touch is more to tease and mock Terri and not an outcome of the physical attraction and passion. Mel and Terri’s tumultuous relationship and Nick and Laura’s romantic relationship are contrasted with the elderly couple in Mel’s story. The elderly couple was nearly killed when a drunk teenager hits their camper with his car. They were badly injured, they survived the accident. When the couple was operated on, both were in full body casts and later transferred to a private room. Although they were in the same room with their beds next to each other, the man’s condition took a turn for the worst. This was because he was depressed. Mel says “the man’s heart was breaking because he couldn’t turn his goddamn head and look at his goddamn wife ”. Although both husband and wife were in their mid-seventies, they were still very much in love and the old man’s only wish was to see his beloved wife. Their love for each other was not based on the physical attraction – it was neither for the looks or a desire for the body. In the book, The Facts on File Companion to the American Short Story, author Abby H.P. Werlock has this to say: “Mel who is a heart surgeon, tells the story of the old couple, who clearly symbolize enduring monogamous love and finds it hard to comprehend such devotion. The world he lives in consists of “serial” replaceable relationships ….. (and) the story raises the question of what love means in a world that no longer regards it with the sanctity of previous generations” (Werlock ) Professor Moramarco in “Carver’s Couples Talk About Love” comments: “Carver intends the Sebastian 6 (old) couple to represent our traditional conception of love – lifetime monogamy – a love that lasts ‘until death do us apart’. …. This kind of love involves dependence, vulnerability and need, all unfashionable qualities in a world of “you do your thing and I’ll do mine.” Professor Moramarco concludes this section with these words, “ In Mel’s world, love is disposable, and disposable love is an oxymoron.” Mel is telling a story about true love which all of them do not understand. Mel cannot understand how the elderly couple who have spent most of their married lives together still have feelings for each other. He wonders how the old man with his injuries does not think about himself but wishes to see his wife and feels depressed because he is unable to do just that. In contrast, Terri’s remarks irritate Mel. When she asks him if he is drunk, Mel reminds her, “I’m not on call today, let me remind you of that, I’m not on call”, then he asks her “to shut up for once in your life. Will you do me a favor and do that for a minute?” (Carver). Although Terri expresses concern, Mel responds in anger. This is because Mel is incapable of deep or genuine feelings. It is in a similar vein that Mel talks about how love can continue even if one loses his first love. First, he reminds Nick and Laura: “You guys have been together eighteen months and you love each other. It shows all over you. You glow with it. But you both loved other people before you met each other. You’ve both been married before, just like us.” (Carver). Then, he continues, “And the terrible thing, the terrible thing is, but the good thing too, the saving grace, you might say, is that if something happened to one of us – excuse me for saying this – but if something happened to one of us tomorrow, I think the other person would grieve for a while, you know, but then the surviving party would go out and love again, have someone else soon enough. …. all of this love we’re talking about, it would just be a memory. Sebastian 7 Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? ” (Carver). Through Mel, Carver is showing us that love can die off and be replaced with love for another or replaced with feelings of anger or hatred. In Mel’s case, when he broke off with his ex-wife, he entered into a relationship with Terri. Meanwhile he is consumed with hatred for his ex-wife, Marjorie, and confesses his fantasy of murdering her because she remains financially dependent on him. In the article, A Comparative Analysis of Three of Raymond Carver’s Short Stories, the author says that “the primary symbol (of the story) is the heart; the heart as the source of physical love and the protagonist is a once seminary turned cardiologist, whose life’s quest is to understand, not the heart but, love.” According to the narrator, Nick, Mel is in a position to talk about what love is all about: “My friend Mel McGinnis was talking. Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist, and sometimes that gives him the right” (Carver). Mel, being a heart surgeon knows the heart well and the heart is the source of emotions. However, Mel only knows the physical function of the heart as he himself admits “I’m a heart surgeon, sure, but I’m just a mechanic. I go in and ……. I fix things” (Carver). However, it is ironic that Mel, being a heart surgeon knows the least about love. Mel mentions that he would have preferred being a knight because “you were pretty safe wearing all that armor ….. you couldn’t get hurt very easy” (Carver). When Nick points out the dangers knights faced, Mel agrees that “some vassal would come along and spear the bastard in the name of love”. Here, Mel is revealing his fears of being hurt in the name of love and just as the armor protects knights, alcohol is Mel’s protection. Unlike Mel, the elderly man in his story wishes to remove the casts that prevent him from looking at and expressing his love for his wife. And unlike the old man who longs to be by his wife’s side, Mel Sebastian 8 wants to live in seclusion. As Laurie Champion in her essay What we talk about when we talk “About Love”: Carver and Chekhov observes “Although Mel does most of the talking …. He is the character who most apparently fails to communicate or connect with others. Several times throughout his narratives he gets frustrated because he feels unable to articulate. ……. Mel’s inability to communicate is significantly related to his inability to connect with others, his loneliness and his inability to experience the type of love Laura and Nick or the elderly couple share.” The only kind of love he is capable of showing is parental love when he thinks about calling his children. In the end, he decides against the idea as he thinks Marjorie will pick up the phone. In the end, when all his attempts to define and explain love have failed, Mel suggests that they get something to eat. Laura responds by saying “I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry in my life. Is there something to nibble on?” (Carver). All the characters are hungry for love but are unable to experience it. Daniel W. Lehman in his essay Symbolic Significance in the Stories of Raymond Carver comments on the way the symbolic structure works in the story. “The four characters are introduced as sunlight ‘filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink’ and ice is neatly contained in a nearby ice bucket …….. As the two couples talk about everything but love, ice melts, glasses overturn, liquid splashes from containers …… and the light ….. soon is draining out of the room…” (Lehman). Thus, the two couples who set out to define and discuss love ends up sitting in total darkness and are totally in the dark about love and what is it we talk about when we talk about love. Sebastian 9 Works Cited Moramarco, Fred. Carver’s Couples Talk About Love www.whitman.edu/english/carver/moramarco.html Web. 7 April 2012. Phillips, Jayne Anne. Carver Review – The Secret Places of the Heart www.jayneannephillips.com/escarver.htm Bloom, Harold. Raymond Carver. Chelsea House Publishers. 2002. Werlock, Abby H.P. The Facts on File Companion to the American Short Story. Second Edition. Infobase Publishing. New York. 2010. A Comparative Analysis of Three of Raymond Carver's Short Stories www.articlesbase.com › Arts & Entertainment › Literature. Web. 7 April 2012.Cached Champion, Laurie. What we talk about when we talk “About Love": Carver And Chekhov Journal of the Short Story in English. http://jsse.revues.org/index83.html Web. 7 April 2012 Lehman, Daniel W. Symbolic Significance in the Stories of Raymond Carver jsse.revues.org › Issues › 46 Web. 7 April 2012. Cached - Similar Carver, Raymond.   What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.   New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1982. Read More