Literary Analysis Of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Peter Raimann

A. Delcourt

English - 057

11/10/16

Literary Analysis: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Although the story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” was written by Raymond Carver in 1981, the human race has not changed so much since that time. We still have almost the same view of things and it makes it not so difficult to understand and analyze the problems revealed in the story. We see quite an ordinary atmosphere when people get together for a friendly conversation and a glass of wine or something stronger, than wine. And it doesn’t matter in what country they reside. They’re just people with their sweets and bitters of life, weaknesses and strengths, highs and lows. We already know what people talk about when

Even though we live in a civilized world, the hard treatment of the men with their wives is nowadays a common case for some families. Nobody can tell exactly why such situations take place. Either it is the display of love to a woman or it is the onset of mental disease, which the psychologists call schizophrenia. Apparently, some events in Ed’s childhood left its stamp on his personality, such as the problems with his peers or some family events. We can suppose that Terri was his first love and he was afraid of losing

The weather seems to reflect the general mood of the story. In the first paragraph the author gives only one, insignificant mark about the weather – “Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink”. But after some time of their conversation, when Mel was telling his story, the sunlight changes, as if the characters themselves change inside, because Mal is talking about the real love, which they have never felt. “The leaves outside the window were still shimmering, the patterns they made on the panes and on the Formica counter were not the same”. Although everybody was drunk, and it was hard keeping things in focus, each of them understood what has happened. The story about the old couple was introduced in the contrast of love the characters considered as a real one. It is the right time for changing the subject, for example to switch over to the theme where to eat. But we know that this is only the pretence, because in fact nobody wants to