Justina Josepha M.S
180410120132
Male Character in Raymond Carver 's Short Stories Collection
A. Background
This study focuses on Raymond Carver 's works, especially on short stories. The focus would be on Carver 's four short stories collections which are Will You Be Quiet, Please? (1976), What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981), Cathedral (1983), and Where I 'm Calling from: New and Selected Stories (1988). Carver 's short stories mostly talk about family 's daily life events. With those daily life events, he shows the downside of family or marriage on relationships between lovers, husband and wife, parents and children, couple and another couple, and family and another family. The downsides are the characters ' experiences their
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Kita also explained more that dirty realism is a new force of American authors, where the characters are a neglected husband, thief, and an addict and the aim of this style is to create "realistic and sad destinies" (p.385) and by comparing with the background I have mentioned before, Carver 's male characters are matched with dirty realism character. By observing Carver 's work, Kita defined Carver 's characters, language, and style. She added that Carver 's stories are stories of "the middle-class" (p.387) which focus on more on their up-to-date appearance. She also included the major themes in Carver 's work where the characters are being delusional, as they consistent in drinking alcohol, being isolated or lonely, where in story like "Vitamins" the narrator feel lonely and cheat on his wife because his wife is too focused and stressed on selling her vitamins and then there are tragedy, inaction, detachment, alcoholism, communication, morality, masculinity as homophobia and epiphany. The genre dirty realism helps on interpreting what the male characters are representing in America around 20th