Love and Relationships - Book Report/Review Example

Love and Relationships The story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver and poem The Odyssey by Homers are both masterpiece works that do illustrate the theme of love. Both authors show evidence of the difficulties involved in love as the characters, Mel and Terri in Raymond’s and Odyssey in Homer’s clearly demonstrates. The characters such as Laura, Nick, and Penelope in the two pieces of literature have gone beyond the obvious to demonstrate their love and relationship. They undergo immense hardships as they try to achieve their goals in romantic angles. In Raymond’s story, love appears to be more than ones expectation and general assumptions about it. The main characters, as the story shows us, seem to have complicated, darker and messier love for they engage in talks revolving about, cheese and crackers, bees domestic abuse, gin and also car accidents. The story introduction setting is in Albuquerque New, Mexico, at a heart doctor’s Mel McGinnis and his wife Terri, home. The love topics keep popping up as we see their newly wedded friends, Laura and Nick in discussing about it; join Doctor Mel and his wife. Hurdles revolving Terry’s previous relationship with Ed, reveals that love has not always been a bed of roses. According to her, her ex-friend had beaten her while still professing his love for her, saying how he loved the bitch, while dragging her around the room. Terry reveals confusion about the basics of love by taking it that Ed beat her out of love. However, perspectives towards the issue seem to vary, as Mel tend to dismiss it as rubbish and actually expects Nick and Laura to gauge it. In other instances, characters tend to move to greater lengths in order to conquer love are when Ed attempted suicide. At one time, he had taken rat poison, which worked not so well, as it backfired, and another instance where he placed a gun in his mouth and shot himself dead. This time, it really worked. It is seen as though he was jealous out of misconception, for he assumed the worst when Mel and Terri were living together during Mel’s divorce with his ex-wife. Terri seems still convinced that her ex was really in love with her, despite his stalking her while with Mel. Her conviction about this love makes her believe that his suicide was out of love for her and that it might have been the reason behind him trying to kill her. However, Nick and Laura seem to know what love is, as evidenced when he touches her hand, then kisses it and she responds with a smile holding his wrist. Nevertheless, Terri dismisses it as sappy love, found in newlyweds and even goes ahead to doom it by saying, though jokingly, it will be over after the honeymoon. The uncertainty of the meaning of love is also evident when these two couples toast the second bottle of gin to love, mattering to whatever love means. Carver even mentions that one “Ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love." Mel, however, seems to have a slight idea of its meaning, as he tells a story of a certain couple who had come to the hospital after being involved in a car accident. According to him, although they survived, which was very lucky of them, the injured man was sad and down. Reason, he could not bear the thought of never being able to turn and look at his wife sleeping beside him, for the accident left his head incapable of turning. Mel’s definition of real love is that it is more of spiritual love. This can be pointed out to the fact that he had attended a seminary college before engaging in medicine. Mel reveals another length that one was willing to go in pursue of love, when he, although drunk, says that if he and Nick were not best friends, he would fall in love with his wife Laura and elope wither. It shows that the only hindrance to Mel’s running away with another man’s woman was just the friendship he shared with Nick, if not; he would not hesitate to do so. Love also seems to cause depression as we see the old couple involved in a car accident seriously get depressed, especially the husband whose major worry was not being able to look at his wife. This shows that he really cared about and loved his wife that he got deeply depressed after the accident. He says the man’s "heart was breaking because he couldn't turn his goddamn head and see his goddamn wife (Carver, 75)". The relationship between Mel and Terri is mostly based on fondness towards each other, as each had come from terrible previous relationships. However, Nick and Laura’s relationship is more of young love for they are just newlyweds and their true meaning of love is yet to be defined. Another misconception or confusion about love is demonstrated when Mel seems to wonder how he could have strongly loved his wife at the beginning, and then that they are divorced, he hates her so much. On the other hand, in The Odyssey Homer’s seems to have a different way of defining or portraying love. Mostly it might be because the story setting goes back in the days, before civilization. During these days, love was defined completely different from how it is perceived in today’s world. Girls, then, were forced into marriages and had no say in the relationships whatsoever. Homer clearly demonstrates love and relationship and just like in Raymond’s story, the true definition of love is quite unclear. Love is more of a power and strength fight, as we see, depending on one’s power, the availability of many suitors completely lies on that. For example, Odysseus acknowledges himself to be in lesser position in terms of acquiring young and lovely suitors as compared to his host at the palace, Polyphemus. The length he takes in order to get into an upper advantage with love is quite unexpected. He uses disguise and deception, by creating a situation where he is locked up alone in a room with the suitors and the only one armed up. This is completely different with Raymond’s for we see people have a chance to choose who to get involved with and even decide how long to stick in their relationships. Odysseus seems to have had mastered the disguise act, for it eventually enable Homer to have to differentiate between people who loved him genuinely and those who were pretending (Homer, 34). The ones who intimately knew and loved him are portrayed as able to recognize Odysseus, long before revealing his identity. These characters include; his dog, Argos, Penelope and Eurycleia, who seem to identify their king even in disguise. It shows that indeed love existed, although its definition and way of expressing it is quite different, compared to the way Raymond shows it. Other love hurdles that affected other characters main objectives include; Circe and Calypso. Homer reveals them as women whose love turns out to be a hindrance for Odysseus to his long return to his home. Raymond and Homer’s way of indicating the struggles men had to undergo in pursuit of love are therefore similar in some areas. In Raymond’s, Ed’s suicide in the name of love indicates it as an extreme and rationale act. According to Homer, there is a tendency of men going astray and losing focus due to seductive appeal by women. The Siren’s charming songs tends to captivate Odysseus and despite Penelope’s scorn towards the suitors, somehow seems to be enjoying them at times. Other lengths that characters seem to go for love are evident when Penelope tends to use her womanly tricks in attempts to disguise her tricks of undoing. She does this every night, during her daytime chores on the burial garment. She even goes to an extent of making the suitors give her gifts, while making them believe that she will get to marry the one will give her the best gifts. Although these women tend to achieve and obtain some sort of power through their sexual advances. While these women do gain a certain amount of power through their sexual charms, they are eventually all under a divine impulse and obligated to wait and yearn for love when it is not available. Therefore, if these women end up in relationships where love is not available, they are subjected to suffer for they are human beings anyway. However, in Mel and Terri’s relationship, as revealed by Roman, indicates, they are not really in love; rather they are somewhat fond of each other. Therefore, it is as if both works reveal some common interest based on love, as the Mel’s case show there is no specific explanation about it. However, there are those instances where love is evident in Homer’s work. The wedding bed suggests the devotion of Odysseus and Penelope’s marriage and love. The fact that no one else had ever seen the bed aside from the maidservant reveals that Odysseus cared and probably loved Penelope enough to let her be the first to lie on it. Homer indicates that the joyful couple spent their first night together in each other’s arms from the time when Odysseus has departed for Troy, twenty years earlier. The significance is intensified by the hoax that Penelope uses to tempt Odysseus, which involves the immobility of their bed. It can be a symbol of their unwavering basis of their love for each other. Although there is no metaphor for love in Raymond’s story, the newlyweds, Nick and Laura, attempts to show off the founded love through a kiss gesture. The elderly couple involved in a car accident also reveals to have known true love and seems to be concerned with the outcome of the accident In both stories, it is evident that the characters fail to achieve their heart’s desire for love as we see in “what we talk about when we talk about love”. Terri, although currently married to Mel, still admires and feels drawn to her previous relationship with Ed, who is dead. The current relationship does not quite seem to satisfy her longing for love. Mel, cannot even acknowledge whatever he has with Terri as love, rather he admits to have had loved his previous wife, although wonders how. The old man involved in an accident is saddened by the deformity caused and therefore is uncertain whether his shared love with his wife will last. In the Odyssey, the suitor’s love was devoted to Penelope, but had their heart’s desire to marry her fail and instead, ended up being murdered. There is a clear indication of deceit, wickedness and other traits that the characters, in both stories, are willing to engage in, in order to pursue love. It is also evident that both authors expose their character’s knowledge about the true meaning of love as unknown, which probably contributes to the turn of events in both works; tragedies. However, both writers bring out strong, pure, and untainted love where characters like Laura and Nick in Raymond’s and Penelope and Odysseus in Homer’s stand strongly founded. Their love, although unknown to them comes out solidly, with Nick believes that theirs will last even after the honeymoon. Penelope has lasted even after her husband went into exile for over 20 years. The royal pair mingled in love again and afterward lay reveling in stories: hers of the siege her beauty stood at home from arrogant suitors, crowding on her sight, and how they fed their courtships on his cattle oxen and fat sheep, and drank up rivers of wine out of the vats. Odysseus told of what hard blows he had dealt to others and of what blows he had taken--that entire story. Works Cited: Carver, Raymond. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. London: Vintage Classic, 2009. Print. Homer, , and William C. Bryant. The Odyssey. Boston: J.R. Osgod, 1871. Print. Read More