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

Both “The Right of Love” by Gene Lees and “The Canonization” by John Donne represent a form of forbidden love due to ethnicity and religion where both parties are fighting for the acceptance of their relationship. Donne, although catholic, falls in love with a non-catholic woman which is looked down upon by others. In his poem he states, “we in us find th’ eagle and the dove”,the two birds represent two polar opposite symbols, the eagle represent strength and courage, while a dove represents love and peace. Although a relationship between catholics and non-catholics were forbidden, they found a common ground in their love for each other. Differences can strengthen the love between two individuals, which is also shown in “The Right of Love”,

Love should be born and live in fields, just like wild flowers. Love needs to be nurtured by water, with no concern about where and when the next rainfall will take place. Love needs to allow nature to take its course and trust in the sustenance that its surrounding provides. However, love refuses to take the easy path. Instead, love decides to live in kitchens alongside irritated cooks, dirty walls and screaming infants with impatient mothers. Clearly, love would be better off without concerns, growing in a field like an iris, patiently waiting for the next rainfall. However, love chooses to exist in chaotic environments filled with discontent and discord.

“She had never said it was love. Neither had he. They were shy. They had been unsure. Now, there would be no time for love. It was in the moment of parting that she knew she loved him” (21).

The Short Story “My Father’s Life,” by Raymond Carver illustrates the difficult task of a son trying to find his own sense of identity and individualism while watching his father’s life unravel. Carver explores the relationships of his parents and his own struggle with sharing the same name with his father and the similarities and differences between them.

The Human Condition is a big part of our understanding of literature, it can mean death, acceptance, judgment, and several other diverse things. It is about the positive or negative aspects of humans that everyone all universally deals with at least one time in one’s life. In the novel “The Great Gatsby”, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the short stories Raymond Carver’s “Everything Stuck to Him”, and Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”, all have the most prominent human condition: love. Love is portrayed as society’s primary concern in literature, and is represented as a main concern in today’s society .

While reading “Little Things” by Raymond Carver I began to realized that he was using several different literary devices to compose a story of many interpretations, such as: imagery, foreshadowing, symbolism, communication, conflict, expression, and suspense. “Little Things” is a tale of two stubborn parents that are separating without any self-tolerance or consideration of how their actions can affect their child. The statement made by Carver is that actions or words can lead to catastrophic endings. At the end of the story, he wrote “in this matter, the issue was decided” to imply that when a relationship involves a child, the intimate relationship between parents should be more empathic. A similar story that touches the same statement

In this global era of evolving civilization, it is increasingly difficult to ignore the fascinating fact about love. Love is a feeling of intimacy, warmth, and attachment. Love is inevitable and it plays a vital role in human life as Janie uses her experience with the pear tree to compare each of her relationships, but it is not until Tea Cake that she finds “a bee to her bloom.” (106).

Throughout my lifetime, there have been moments of laughter as well as grief. The first time I felt what it was truly like to lose the love of my life I ended up heartbroken and devastated. From that moment on my perception of love changed completely. The song by Christian Nodal- “Adios Amor” showed me how at times when the love fades between partners to the point where there is no love at all, you have to do your best to move on rather than spending time grieving the love that is lost. Therefore, the song “Adios Amor” taught me that some relationships are best to let go of if they don’t work as a young adult, and will continue to guide me throughout my life.

We live in a society that has increasingly stomped on love, depicting it as cruel, superficial and full of complications. Nowadays it is easy for people to claim that they are in love, even when their actions say otherwise, and it is just as easy to claim that they are not when they really are. Real love is difficult to find and keeping it alive is even harder, especially when one must overcome their own anxieties and uncertainties. This is the main theme present in Russell Banks’ short story “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story,” as well as in “The Fireman’s Wife,” written by Richard Bausch. These narratives, although similar in some aspects, are completely different types of love stories.

Love is undoubtedly one of the most frequently explored subjects in the literary world. Whether the focus is a confession of love, criticism of love, tale of love, or simply a tale about what love is, such literary pieces force readers to question the true meaning and value of love. Raymond Carver accomplishes this in his short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” As the unadorned setting and the personality of each character unfold, the reader realizes that Carver is making a grave comment on the existence of love. Carver utilizes strong contrast, imagery, and diction to ultimately suggest that love cannot be defined concretely and therefore cannot be defined in words, and because of this, it is better off unexplored.

Love exists in the short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” by Alice Munro and in the short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by Raymond Carver. in Munro’s short story the plot is that of a mentally ill wife, Fiona, who falls in love with another patient while her husband still tries to hang on to their old love. Her husband eventually wants to have an affair with the wife of the man his wife is having an affair with. Their love changed because of their circumstances due to ill health. Carver’s story discusses the different definitions of love due to the type and quality of relationships; everyone has a different definition. Love also exists all over the world within different environments and cultures. The concept of love depends upon the environment in which it inhabits. Love is dependent on the life of the people in love and it also depends on their current environment. Nature and nurture are also huge factors into the development and process of love. What nature and nurture mean is whether it is due to how the person lives and acts along with their personality compared to whether it’s all in their genetics beforehand. Love is more on the nurture side instead of the nature side of human experience.

Everyone does not always have the same views on love. In Carver’s short story, Mel implies how he feels no one truly knows

Love cannot be defined in one sentence or even a paragraph. Every human has his or her own definition of love because people usually define love based on their cultures, backgrounds, social classes, educations, and their societies. In this essay, the main point will be the different kinds of love that Carver illustrates in his story “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love.” In Carver’s story, there are some points that I can relate to my personal experience. There are a few characteristics and symbols in the story that are really important to understand in order to define what a real love is and find the intention thrown out the story. These characteristics includes, Mel, Terri and Ed and Terri’s relationship. Furthermore, symbols

Finding the Love of Your Life was written by Neil Clark Warren, PH.D., and in this book he explains his ten basic principles of finding the right mate to spend your life with. He teaches people how to understand the two different types of love: passionate love and companionate love. He states that many do not get past the passionate love portion which is why many people go from relationship to relationship when the passion wears off.

Our innate tendencies affect out behavior patterns in the life cycle. From love, sex, and marriage and the change from societies to past and future times. The discoveries of why we have mating traits and how they are used in many meanings such as a smile or the way a person speaks with their body. The forces of culture and environment take part in human involvement in the world. While men and women start to change roles and rights are broaden in a marriage. Along comes divorce in which happens so often in societies because of many reasons. What we have inherited is from out ancestors and it repeats itself in every life cycle. The expedition of the book Anatomy of Love goes through the past to future on love, sex, marriage, and divorce and how it relates to modern societies.