My Father's Life By Raymond Carver

The first event starts the entire plot of the book, which is when Carver is adopted by Mr. Hawking. This event sets into motion the rest of the novel as Carver is trained to become detective just as Hawking did, and that sets up the antagonist of the novel Jack The Ripper. For Carver to be adopted he had to prove his skills to Hawking through a series of puzzles designed by Hawking, as Carver is struggling to solve the last test Hawking finds him and says, “‘Boy, you’ve come this far you can’t just back down now’” (Petrucha 32). Hawking’s motivation drove Carver to solve the last puzzle revealing the New Pinkerton agencies secret base of operation. Carver walks into the agency and remembers the letter his

17-year-old Kyle loves cars, and he loves the rush of taking risks. One day, he and his friends steal a car. Eventually, he and his friends begin to steal more cars. Soon, they start planning to steal other things- like expensive jewelry. Before they steal the jewelry, the police confront Kyle, telling him that if he stops the stealing and if he helps them find the stolen cars, they’ll let him go.

From the start, author Raymond Carver, expresses the narrator’s selfishness by his inability to understand others thoughts and feelings. This is a major factor indicating his overall blindness. In the beginning of

Though this work is like many of Carver’s other works with dialog, average hippi, working class people only this one illustrates his own new forsight in how to write. Yet this work still leaves you hanging in the moment as with all his literature

Real life and literature go hand in hand, in that one inspires the other. The world we live in, the people in our lives, the lessons we learn, and the deep emotions we feel, whether we want to or not, are all embedded within great works of literature. It is through the lives of literary characters, that we connect to our own lives and the experiences we’ve had or yet to have. Authors are able to dive into human emotion in a way that we sometimes never see coming. This is true in the case of Raymond Carver’s short stories.

Raymond Carver is often known for his writing style known as minimalism, a style that often uses short phrases or sentences that convey a great amount of meaning. Carver’s “Cathedral” is full of minimalism, whether it be short and repetitive dialogue or brief thoughts that go through the narrators mind. These intentionally precise sentences are full of meaning, whether it be the importance of communication, or the lack of, the underlying tones of death and jealously, or even the psychological connection between the narrator and the reader. One argument states that, although there is importance within the small amount of words that the characters say, there also lies significance within the silence of characters, defining the silence as

Endings can sometimes be a complicated read. The readers are not always given what they think will happen, or the answers to their questions during the story. This is where these stories differ in craft of the endings. Carver’s ending does not necessarily answer the question of “Does he forgive his wife?”. Because the ending of this story is not perfectly clear, it leaves the readers to think what they want. On the

Carver establishes his use of symbolism and irony initially when describing the tapes that Robert and the wife would send each other. For example, he initially asked “her to send him a tape and tell him about her life” which continues with many tapes over the years about aspects and struggles of each other’s lives (78). This is consequential because it shows how the tapes, only filled with stories and feelings, transcended the deformity itself and allowed

The visionary ideas that were illustrated in both Edward Hopper and Raymond Carver works sketched the image of the characters experiencing the sense of isolation and despair as well as finding identity. Examining Carver “Chef's House” and Hopper Rooms by the Sea we observe the internal conflict created by isolation with the feeling of losing hope with the uncomfortable feel of crisis but also identity. The idea of identity was explored by Carver when edna puts her wedding ring back on when she went and stayed with wes (her ex husband) during the summer at the chef’s house after leaving her boyfriend. In paragraph 3 of “Chef’s House” Edna states “I put my wedding ring back on.

In the short story, “Cathedral”, Carver uses reader response criticism to let the reader interpret the story by leaving out pieces of information. Carver has been dubbed a “minimalist” for his low-key plots and spare style (34). This approach allows the reader to look deeper into a character without even knowing their name. With the mentioning of alcohol, marijuana, and a suicide attempt, all before the eye-opening moment at the end…it gives the reader a glimpse into Raymond Carver’s own life-long struggle with alcoholism and possible struggles with his life.

Carver uses strong words to intensify the mood and tone of the story, it helps the reader imagine what has happened within each setting.In the story it states, “Cars slushed by on the street outside, where it was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the inside too”, this example

Blindness does not merely limit itself to the eyes: it can plague the most profound depths of the heart as well. When a man closes off one of the most vital veins to his heart, compassion, he too can find himself lost in the bleak and somber tundra of mere existence. The liberation of the heart is a liberation which some cannot easily attain. In many instances, the heart may require an influence or spark that revives the compassion that is lacking. In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” the author takes this notion of intervention and demonstrates it through the tale of a vulgar and callous man who seems to lack even the slightest amount of compassion for anyone. The man appears to have no friends, no direction in life, and he most certainly has no filter. These claims become apparent throughout the beginning of the story and towards the middle when the man speaks of an expected visitor, Robert, his wife’s old friend who happens to be blind, and brutally launches his narrow-minded prejudices towards the old man. The story presents an ironic twist as the reader begins to realize that despite the blind man’s disability, he appears to have a far greater sense of vision than the narrator and is even somewhat successful in kindling a newly found compassion within the heart of the narrator.

This bitterness and sarcasm is revealed as strong characteristics of the narrator. Throughout the majority of the story, the narrator continues shows his distaste for any "happy" situation. Much like the hyphenated asides, Carver implements fragmented sentences behind description, to show the narrator pausing for a moment of color commentary.

Bernard MacLaverty does not give the FATHER and the SON any names as they represent all fathers and sons. The writer is telling us that all families have problems. The story has universal

This week I submerge myself in Raymond Carver's short stories, here I share some thoughts on the story I chose and answer the following questions as well.