Raymond Carver What We Say About When We Talk About Love Analysis

A pessimistic view of love doesn’t have to be one of abuse and lying, it can be as simple as just not knowing what love is. Raymond Carver presents a pessimistic view of love in his short story “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” with the use of imagery, tone, and characterization. While Carver tells the story of four friends sitting at a table talking about love he allows the reader to evaluate the strength and authenticity of his character’s relationships. Carver does have his characters discuss abuse and lying, but the underlying theme to his pessimism deals more with the unknown things about love or that his characters just don’t understand it. First is the way Carver uses imagery in order to give the reader a cynical impression

Slowly having the light fade from the room the longer the friends discuss love. At the very beginning of the story, Carver writes, “Sunlight filled the kitchen” (Carver 656). This probably wasn’t the start of the conversation, but Carver makes it out to be when they first got on the subject of love. A little while later he says, “The sunshine inside the room was different now…Thinner” (Carver 664). This quote connects the sunshine to the character’s understanding and the basis of what love is. Instead of saying the sun was dimmer or just saying there wasn’t as much sunlight in the room Carver chose the word thinner. He’s saying that as the conversation goes on the friends are beginning to realize that the foundation that their understanding of love sits on is getting thinner. Finally, Carver literally shows the four friends are in the dark “…even when the room went dark” (Carver 665) as in they’re all in the dark about love. Carver’s characters went from believing they all understood and had a firm grasp on what love is, “Sunlight filled the kitchen” (Carver 656) to realizing they don’t even have a way to begin to understand what love is, “…even when the room went dark” (Carver