The Influence of Raymond Carver Biography on His Writing - Essay Example

The Influence of Raymond Carver Biography on His Writing and Number 06 April Introduction Raymond Carver is a renowned master of the literary word and is reasonably related to revitalization of such a literature genre as American short story in the 1980s. His literary work is recognized for its specific topics, manner of writing, symbolism and characters and is reckoned to be the most influential one since the times of Ernest Hemingway. (Stull, 1995-1996). The realities of the writer’s life – the atmosphere of living in poverty, search for salvation in alcohol, heavy diseases, constant need for money to feed the family – have significantly influenced his writing, as it usually happens in literature, making Carver’s works recognizable and different from writing of the others, even by referring to as “a dirty realist”. (Reid, 1992). In this paper this influence of biography on literature works of Raymond Carver will be investigated on the example of the story “Cathedral”. Raymond Carver was born in a small town of Clatskanie, Oregon, which is a mill town located on the river of Columbia. The author’s childhood passed in the town of Yakima, Washington. His family left much to be desired because his father suffered from heavy alcoholism and his mother had to take great pains to run the family and work as a retail clerk and a waitress. Local schools of Yakima, Washington, were the place where Carver educated. The main way of spare time passing was reading, and he preferred to read novels written by Mickey Spillane. The prospective writer also used to fish and hunt together with his family and friends. 1956 was the year when he graduated from Yakima High School and started working together with his father in California at one of the sawmills. When Raymond Carver was 19 years, he decided to marry Maryann Burk, a graduate of a private girls’ Episcopal school of 16 years old. In December 1957, their first child, the daughter, was born and next year, when Raymond was 20, their son, the second child, was born. To support the family and to earn at least any money, Raymond took many different jobs, most of which were hard: he worked as a janitor, a delivery man, a library assistant, and a sawmill worker. His wife Maryann contributed to support of the family by means of working as a salesperson, a waitress, an English teacher at high school. (Sklenicka, 2009). This information would give food for thought and a basis of conclusions of the psychologists and sociologists: the childhood of Raymond Carver passes in the atmosphere of not very good living conditions, and alcoholism of his father might give him an example if his future life behavior; another thing that was similar in family life of Carver and his father’s family was his wife’s working as a waitress. Carver was also married twice: in November 1977 he met a poet Tess Gallagher which five years after caused their divorce with the first wife, Maryann, and married Tess in 1988. This marriage was not long because six weeks after the writer died from lung cancer on the second of August, 1988. (Kellermann, 1988). The beginning of the writing career of Raymond Carver happened in California, and his mentor, John Gardner, taught courses of creative writing. Gardner, who Carver himself was very fond of, had a significant influence on his career and life. Poetry and short stories were the major points of Carver’s literature career. This genre is famous for its specific feature of description of important issues and problems in a text of a small volume. His works are marked with features of minimalism, and this is quite logical from the point of view of his biography: he faced serious problems of terms of money making and family supporting, and this, obviously, gave very few opportunities to do something else rather than that, that is, he lived with this minimalism in every moment of his life which found reflection in his works. The Story “Cathedral” published in 1983 gives excellent basis for researches of the author’s biography influence on his works of literature. The text abounds analogies and facts from the writer’s life, and for it is better to analyze biographical aspect of the “Cathedral” by division into such categories for convenience: style, setting, language, symbolism, characters, tone. The style of the story is possible to define as descriptive with persuasive elements. The narrator of the story describes his meeting with a blind man, an unusual experience for him, and proves his opinions on the matter of the blind: he does not understand many things of their life, such as impossibility of this very blind he meets to see his wife, and feels himself very curious about this. It is also necessary to mention that this description does not limit to only description by itself, it also helps to create a picture of the events passing in the story. The setting of the story has features of Carver’s life state of affairs. The narration is accompanied by presence of alcohol, and drinking of the characters is possible to call extensive. Carver was subjected to harmful influence of alcohol but could not do anything with this: he searched for salvation caused by difficult conditions of life, but this way of escape is very dangerous in terms of health. The characters, though, cannot be called alcoholics, but life experience of Carver played its role in description of the drinking process in his short story. Another autobiographical feature is cancer: Carver suffered and eventually died from lung cancer, and a secondary character of the story, a wife of the blind man, died from cancer. It is possible to suggest that this issue was included into the story because this is a terrible disease and the author wanted to warn people of its danger and to avoid bad habits, one of which – excessive smoking – contributed to Carver’s health deteriorating. The setting also has such autobiographical detail as marriage: as it is mentioned above, Carver married twice, and the wife of the narrator of the “Cathedral” divorced her first husband, a military air force officer, and married him. This fact from the writer’s biography has some similarities with the above mentioned: Carver also wanted to invite his new friend who later on became his wife to his home, the same way the wife of the narrator of the story did, and the reason for the divorce was, most probably, being tired from the current situation and desire of new experience. This situation is promoted by oppressive conditions of life when daily routine and money making are the only activities of a man, and Carver’s poor life and constant depression made their contribution to breaking his first family. The language of the story could be referred to as simple. It is most probably caused because of the author’s use of such language in his everyday life: not much talking in conditions of constant hard working and being tired do not foster development of beautiful and exquisite speech. The author also used this type of language because of the genre peculiarities: short stories must be read in a short period of time, and too complicated language may distract a reader from the text. It is also necessary to state that the language of the “Cathedral” is mainly monosemantic, that is, the words do not have may meanings, which is typical of minimalism of the poor to which category the author belonged, again because of the life realities; the only exception here is the cathedral which, besides its primary meaning – a place or prayers and other religious events, usually big and built within a very long period of time – has a figurative meaning of joining of people to cope with their problems. The story has numerous symbols which also relate to biography of Raymond Carver. The blind man, a friend of the narrator’s wife, is a symbol of the unknown: the narrator did not have experience of communication with the blind and did not know how to behave when meeting him, and he was cautious about how to react to emergence of an unknown person in his own house. This is a typical feature of thinking of people whose material state of affairs is not good at all: they do not want to take risks and prefer to do the things they can, for example, to do the job which they already do instead of taking up something new but more lucrative. The author did not want to risk as well, and the unknown future made him do the things he could. The blind man in this case is a symbol of the unknown, but it is not necessary to be afraid of this unknown: when the narrator started communication with the blind man, he was suspicious of this event at all, but at the end of the story he felt very good because he experienced new things. From biographical aspect, however, fear of the unknown coincides with Carver’s vision of life, which is perfectly reflected by these words: "I guess I dont believe in it. In anything. Sometimes its hard…” (Carver, 1983). The characters of the story also show traces of Carver’s autobiography. The narrator has a habit of extensive smoking, which was Carver’s trouble, and likes drinking. He is suspicious about the new things and is cautious of his own behavior when they happen – the same feature of the writer. The narrator also, as per his wife’s words, had no friends, which is typical of a constantly working person. The wife of the narrator is autobiographical in terms of her being married twice, and the blind man is a reflection of the unusual things that the author did not know about. The tone of the “Cathedral” is possible to define as conversational. This is because the story is written as a monologue and when reading it there is a feeling that it is read by a reader or spoken by a speaker. There are such things present in a live speech as exclamations, it is possible to trace intonation (when the wife is angry with the narrator and shouts at him) and pauses in communication of the characters. The scenes of dialogues between the couple are surely autobiographic, because a husband and a wife often argue and do it rather emotionally, which, of course, Carver experienced to full extent. Conclusion Raymond Carver is often associated with the writer of the poor working class. This is true because of his life situation: being poor himself, he reflected this in his literature works. They are influenced by his biography which abounded in different events and circumstances, and his life experience contributed to shaping his words and texts. The story “Cathedral” is influenced much bi the author’s biography, and this influence makes Carver’s works different from the others’ ones and gives opportunity to call them unique. Works Cited Carver, R. Cathedral. 1983. Web. 22 April 2015. Carver, R. Two Interviews with Raymond Carver. Translated by W. Stull. 1995-1996. Web. 22 April 2015. Kellerman, S. Raymond Carver, Writer and Poet Of the Working Poor, Dies at 50. 1988. Web. 22 April 2015. Reid, D. A Dirty Realist: No Heroics, Please. Uncollected Writings by Raymond Carver, (Vintage Books: $10; 239 pp.). 1992. Web. 22 April 2015. Sklenicka, C. Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life. New York: Scribner, 2009. Read More