When We Talk About Love By Raymond Carver Analysis

The short story “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” by Raymond Carver is about four friends- Laura, Mel, Nick, and Terri, gathering on a table and having a conversation. As they start to drink, the subject abruptly comes to “love.” Then, the main topic of their conversation becomes to find the definition of love, in other word to define what exactly love means. However, at the end, they cannot find out the definition of love even though they talk on the subject for a day long. Raymond Carver in “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” illustrates the difficulty of defining love by using symbols such as heart, gin, and the sunlight.
Although the heart is used with its concrete meaning as symbols in the short story, they are interpreted by more abstract meanings. For instance, the story begins with the use of the heart as a symbol by the character, Mel McGinnis who is a cardiologist - a heart doctor; thus, it gives him the right to speak first. He talks more than other characters in the short story yet; he cannot come up with a clear definition of love.

In addition to this, at the beginning, they think that they know what love means; they have the hope to find the definition of love and, in the middle of the story they begin to lose in the subject so their hope to find the definition of love also becomes vanishing.” The light was draining out of the room, going back through the window where it had come from. Yet nobody made a move to get up from the table to turn on the overhead light” (Carver 183). This highlights that towards the end of the story, they do not know what they talk about, interested in coming up with a definition or they do not even move from where they sit so, their hope to find the definition of love is completely gone. As it is shown above, Raymond Carver by using the sunlight as a symbol illustrates the difficulty of love in the