So Much Water So Close To Home

In Raymond Carver?s short story So Much Water So Close To Home it begins with Claire the narrator, describing her husband the main character of the story Stuart Kane. Claire is a very eloquent speaker and usually can?t agree with Stuart so she keeps to herself. Stuart and three of his friends Gordon Johnson, Mel Dorn, and Vern Williams had planned a fishing trip to the Naches River just like they usually do every spring. How ever the events that would happen on this trip would affect Stuart?s and Claire?s life forever. Upon arriving to their camp site Mel Dorn had found a girl floating in the river, so instead of reporting the body to the authorities immediately they continued their trip and called the police when they returned. Throughout the entire story Claire believes that Stuart was responsible for the death of the girl. Raymond Carver faced many challenges in his life such as death, poverty, and alcohol. In his writing carver shows how varied life experiences contributes to different life perspectives and how these perspectives can effect close personal relations. To do this, Carver incorporates quasi autobiographical storyline to reflect how this theme touched his own life.

Death in Carvers life contributed in many aspects to the perspective of Stuart Kane. In the story Stuart is seeing death firsthand at the river and does not seem to be bothered buy this. Stuart felt that reporting the dead body could wait until the end of the fishing trip; this reflects how Carver has dealt with death in his life. Carver, his wife and two children had moved to Israel in 1968 Carver was there because he wanted to travel. His children took an hour and a half bus ride to a non English speaking school everyday. One day a bomb exploded on his children?s school bus killing six children. Carver?s visit was ended short because of this bone chilling event. (Carver Country 12). After experiencing a close call with death Carver would forever be desensitized to coping with deaths.