Carver and Hoppers Interpretation of Depression Disguised as Love Raymond Carver and Edward Hopper had similar work despite the fact that they were from different time periods. Carver was a well known short story minimalist writer, and Hopper was a realist painter. Carver had a collection of short stories, there was alcohol involved in all of them. Carver struggled with alcohol in his daily life therefore that was the motive as to why alcohol was a main factor in his stories. Hopper was typically known for his oil paintings, in his paintings the characters are often in isolation and could be characterized as depressing because of the fact that they are never smiling and they are looking off into the distance. Thesis Love was the. “What we talk about when we talk about Love” is one of Carvers most prominent stories. In this short story Mel and his second wife Terri spent a majority of their time discussing whether or not Terris first husband Ed actually loved her or not. Ed had tried to kill Terri a couple of times, Terri was in an abusive relationship. Despite the fact that Ed was very abusive towards Terri, Terri defended him saying that “HE LOVED HER SO MUCH THAT HE WOULD ACTUALLY KILL HIMSELF IN THE NAME OF THEIR LOVE”. Terri defended this love because she was blinded by the fact that he was her first love. Terri believed that Ed showed her the greatest act of true love when he shot himself. She wanted to believe that Ed really loved her. In the painting