Raymond Caver

Throughout the reading this week, the information presented in David Elliott and Bennett Reimer’s texts stressed the importance of music and more specifically, music education. “People everywhere find music rewarding, and everywhere we find people engaged in formal and non-formal efforts to teach and learn music.” (Elliott, 2014, p. 4)

Tim Winton’s short story, ‘The Water Was Dark and it Went Forever Down’, depicts a nameless, adolescent girl who is battling the voices inside her head along with the powerful punishments at the hands of her inebriated mother. The key concerns of life and death are portrayed through the girl’s viewpoint as she compares her life with her sad, depressed mother. Anonymous as she is, the girl constantly makes an attempt to escape the outbursts, that come as a result to her mother’s drinking, by submerging herself into the water. An extended metaphor is used when expressing the girl as a machine and her will to continue surviving in her sombre life.

For this essay, I am going to be discussing the short story “Swimming” found on the New Yorker, and written by T. Cooper. I have chosen this story for many reasons, and among those reasons is the personal sadness I felt when I first read the story, almost as if the universe was placing a certain theme in my life, that only the main character could possibly understand. I am talking about running, the god given instinct felt by all men, inherent in the nature of fear, and brought out in all who feel sadness in its full intensity. Though in my short life I can not compare the sadness I have felt with that of losing a child at my own hand, but if I had been placed in that situation, if fate had tempted my soul with such a sequence of events, I would like to think I could find the strength to endure and the courage to not abandon all I had previously known. Yet I am able to reconcile the themes of grief, the mode of recovery, and the longing to escape such a terrible tale. I think in this piece, as I will discuss in later parts, the author was able to put into words a transformation we rarely get to observe in closeness, the kind of transformation that turns a kind man into a “just man” the kind of death that turns this world from a beautiful and happy place into a world that is closing in on our main character, that is forcing him to surface temporarily and gasp for air, much like he does when he finds peace in the water, wading breath after air, after sea. I firmly believe that

1) The paramedics on the scene observed empty bottles of wine around the perimeter of the hot tub. The bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Underhill lie at the bottom of the tub which had a noticeably above average temperature. The couple was determined to have been dead long before the paramedics arrived. It was also mentioned that Mr. Underhill had taken Lasix before entering the hot tub.

Winton, has described the characters in this short story to be different, friendly and angry. ‘Forensic team in waders carry bones from the edge of the lake’ (p.g 37) and ‘Through the open window I smelt wild lupins and estuary mud’ (p.g 37). In the first pages of this chapter I, was a young boy who played with the Box kids across the street and they were Catholics who all smelled the same. The Joneses, were Aboriginals who didn’t need to keep up with complicated situations, but were always angry, dark and loud. This chapter involves information about a character who was a child, who passed a remote lagoon and swampland everyday on his way to school, and eventually gained the courage to explore within the depth of the location. At attempting to unlock this secret passage, it included many secrets and mysteries that needed to be discovered. By reading ‘Aquifer’, this brought the characters to a place that they felt immediately in connection with, this included memories that were buried in their past that they have shaped and now believe that they are today. Winton’s exploration of the way that the past ‘Sits hand in Glove’ (p.g 38) with the present drew many feelings and emotions into the description of the

“The Swimmer,” a short fiction by John Cheever, presents a theme to the reader about the unavoidable changes of life. The story focuses on the round character by the name of Neddy Merrill who is in extreme denial about the reality of his life. He has lost his youth, wealth, and family yet only at the end of the story does he develop the most by experiencing a glimpse of realization on all that he has indeed lost. In the short story “The Swimmer,” John Cheever uses point of view, setting and symbolism to show the value of true relationships and the moments of life that are taken for granted.

“The Bath” by Raymond Carver focuses on the theme of struggle, doubt, weakness, anxiety, and communication. The characters names in this story are not directly or frequently introduced, which shows and verifies the author’s simple standpoint and plan. Through barely introducing the characters in this story, the author can convey the lack of projected emotions in his characters, and the frequency of realistic emotions of fear and uncertainty in his story. Given all the circumstances in this short story, Raymond Carver’s story “The Bath” is meant to signify lack of communication, and the outcome it causes.

'Stone Mattress' is a collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood that all have a very similar recurring theme. Though the four short stories analyzed are unrelated, they all examine the evils that exist in in modern society. Through this collection of short stories, both realistic fiction and fantasy, Atwood sheds light upon the evils that all people are capable of. Upon reading the short stories, the reader is able to connect with the characters, as the scenarios and characters are are relatable and engaging. The realistic fiction pieces within the novel such as The Dead Hand Loves You, Stone Mattress and The Freeze-Dried Groom narrate characters in situations that could very easily occur to anybody. It is no doubt that the internal dialogues

Steven is a thirteen-year-old gifted drummer with an imagination that takes him from writing in his daily English journal to musing on his own life. The book is about his experience of the year his five-year-old brother, Jeffrey Alper, gets diagnosed with leukemia. He totally didn’t expect his little brother to get leukemia. This was a big change for him. From worrying about a drumming performance, and attention from Renee Albert, to a huge worry for his brother he had thought would only try to embarrass him. When people from school found out about Stevens sick brother, Steven gets a lot of attention and sympathy from his friends. As time passes and Jeffrey goes to his treatments, Steven stops doing all his school work to only think about his

Notwithstanding their partner’s contempt of reading and writing, both the father in “The Boat,” and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” continue to search for reprieve through their respective books and diary.

Your name and some very basic information about yourself: Where do you live? Who are the members of your family?

For my final sense of place, I decided to watercolor my experience in my sense of place. It’s an expression of what I’m thinking so my face is in the middle. The top layer, painted in red and yellow, is Arizona. There are two sides to this layer- that with cacti and that with mesas. The cacti represent southern Arizona where I live and the mesas symbolize northern Arizona where the rez is and my family lives. Then, the lower layer is Dartmouth. To the left is the forest and the beauty of New Hampshire. On the other side is Dartmouth Hall which is very different and separated from the forest- Dartmouth is a bubble and is separated from the normality of its surroundings. Between these two layers is the sky- a mixture of blue and purple. Traveling between the two places is very emotional because I have close relationships in both places.

Death by water also plays a large part of Louise Erdrich’s short story “Fleur,” in a much more immediate and dramatic way. The story opens with a drowning in the same way that The Piano opens with a journey by water; the drowning, however, is not only

Carver found himself in a very dark place. Carver now suffered from alcoholism, many different drug addictions, and even depression as a result of his divorce. Although Carver’s life was looking down, he did not give up. Three years later, Carver decided to pull his life together. He attended many Alcoholics Anonymous meetings a decided to take up writing. Carver even got re-married. After finally getting his life back together, Carver decided to start writing again. This time in his life is the time that he created some of his most famous short-stories. The following are some of those stories: “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love”, “The Cathedral”, and “Elephant.” Carver’s second marriage, turn around with his alcoholism and drug addictions, and new writings are all included in what is known as Raymond Carver’s “second life.”(King)

“An Occurrence at Own Creek Bridge” is a very detailed story which paints a vivid