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

The meaning of love cannot be defined in one sentence or even in 16 pages. Every human has his or her own definition of what love is. People define love by their own experiences whether as true love or ending in heartaches. In Raymond Carver’s short story, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, he describes what love is, by depicting what it is not. He executes this by portraying the experiences of four people, while using their dialogue and setting in the story to describe how something so beautiful as love can easily become an awkward and repelling subject to discuss.

Carver uses the four characters, Mel, Terri, Nick and Laura to describe different types of love. He begins by using Terri’s ex husband as an example of an abusive relationship.

Love isn’t any of those things and although she never admitted to them being the correct way to love someone, she felt that in some sense someone that was willing to go to those extremes was because they were in love. Terri’s ex, Ed, showed love in an unhealthy level of being physically dangerous to the person he proclaimed to care for. Then, we have Laura’s and Nick’s relationship; As a reader there wasn’t much description about what they’re thoughts on love was, but we do know that they had recently been married. With this small detail, Carver lead us to almost everything we needed to know about their thoughts on love. They were in the honeymoon stage, where everything is perfect. He shows this by depicting Laura and Nick’s interaction with one another. It was small gestures like the flushing of skin when they would look at each other, or the kisses and the simple fact that Nick stated that “In addition to being in love, we like each other and enjoy each others company. She’s easy to be with.”. (Carver 174) They were at the beginning of the spectrum where they were still infatuated with each other. They couldn’t

Their relationship was easy and drama free almost provoking jealousy for Terri and her bad experience with love. Then there is Mel, who attempted to define love since there was so many levels to the spectrum of love. He described how after being in love with his ex wife it turned into hate and how he thought he loved her but ended up wanting to kill her. His love was at the end of the spectrum, once the love was gone. His ex wife was trying to bankrupt them and couldn’t even call his kids without having a argument with his ex wife. Mel and Terri’s relationship was filled with drama from both parties that they both had a bad experience with love that they had to start over. Mel tried using an example of an elderly couple that was a part of a tragic accident, but while telling the story he began to get cut off and the tension started to rise between Mel and Terri. Eventually Laura tells him to resume the story and he does. He was the doctor