Violence in the Collection of Short Stories By Raymon Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

What we talk about when we talk about love is a collection of short stories written in 1981 by Raymond Carver, and is the title to one of the stories in the book. The short story itself symbolises a wide range of diverse human behaviour expressed by the four characters it possess. One of the more explicit and extremely repentant themes are that of violence and abuse. Throughout the story different acts of violence both physical and verbal acts are portrayed and shown. Carver shows violence and abuse through his book What we talk about when we talk about love in order to shape his readers views and opinions.

WWTAWWTAL contains four main characters that each embodies and portrays unalike emotions and behaviour throughout the story. The story evolves around a couple, Mel McGinnis and Teresa, who live in Albuquerque and have been married for several years. The Narrator informs us that Mel is 45 years old and he is a cardiologist, he also describes that he is ‘tall and rangy with curly soft hair’ and that Teresa who is Mel’s second wife, is a lady who is ‘bone-thin with a pretty face, dark eyes, and brown hair’. Mel and Teresa invite Nick and Laura to their house, where Nick is the actual narrator of the story. The two couples sit around the kitchen table, in the middle, a bottle of gin, the couples drink and discuss there pasts as well as love.

Raymond Carver was a blue-collar worker who came from underprivileged roots and was born in Oregon. One of the most important aspects that malformed Carver’s life was the fact that his father was a heavy drinker. Carver graduated high school and began working with his father at the sawmill, when he was 19 he married a 16-year-old girl, and soon after had two children at the age of 20. His li...

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... with Maryann as the two got divorced soon after this book was written. Mel continues to use vulgar language throughout the story, even when it comes down to the simplest questions or remarks made to his statement, he tells Teresa “what the fuck’s the difference” when he was corrected.

Throughout What we talk about when we talk about love Carver uses his own experiences in order to shape his readers view and behaviours. After starting his ‘new life’ Carver realises what he did wrong to his wife and two kids and projects it through the characters in the story. He feels guilty and therefore tries to show what he did wrong. Through doing this he informs the readers of the short story of common problems and changes peoples views. There are a lot of different human behaviours that are explored in the book some claim its love but the most important is violence and abuse.