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The Meaning Of Love In Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Essay

What We Talk About

Raymond Carvers "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" appears to make the case that it is possible to hate the thing you love. This is the crux of what Terri describes, at least, in her abusive relationship with Ed. Ed used to drag Terri around by the ankles and beat and say, I love you, I love you, you bitch! She believed he meant ithis love was real. The wrath, however, as Mel points out was not love; it could not be. The only explanation, therefore, is that it is possible to have two contradictory passions at once, competing in ones will, even to the point that one destroys the thing one loves. Such is not a new theme in literature, at any rate. Shakespeare touched on it in Othello. Carver touches on it here in this story.

Sleevi (2012) contends that there are two versions of lovea violent one, and a kind one. Each demonstrates itself differently, but both have the same end goalto be loved in return. This is evident in Carvers story in the way the couples reach out to reassure and to be reassured in return: the way Mel reaches out to touch Terris cheek after he contradicts her about what love is; the way the narrator reaches out and touches the back of Lauras hand to reassure her and to be reassured by her when they both speak their minds on the topic. There is a give-and-take, an action and reaction in the love concept. Even the act of talking about love is that way: there is no way to explain it or bring it up without having to...

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…overwhelms and oppresses. Is it because the object of their love is inadequate? Augustine tried to get at this problem of love in his Confessions and concluded that peoples hearts are restless until they rest in God (Allen, 1985). Perhaps that is why there seems to be no real rest for Carvers characters: they are trying to rest in their love of some thingsome object, some romance, some honeymoon, some earthly idea, some personbut for love to find its fullest reciprocation it has to be placed in love itself, which is God, according to Augustine. At any right, nothing in Carvers story challenges Augustines thinking: Carvers characters come up short, overwhelmed perhaps in a way by misplaced love, love on the run, love seeking but not fully finding, love looking but not knowing for what, love expressing but not knowing what…

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References

Allen, R. (1985). The confessions of St. Augustine. National Review, 37, 28-31.

Carver, R. (2014). What we talk about when we talk about love. Simon and Schuster.

Sleevi, S. R. (2012). When We Talk About Raymond Carver: Experiencing Two Versions of WhatWe Talk About When We Talk About Love (Doctoral dissertation, Georgetown University).

Taniyama, S. (2000). The outsider theme in selected fiction by EM Forster, Raymond Carver,Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Sumii Sue: An experiment in the study of multicultural literatures. The Union Institute.

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