Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Love is undoubtedly one of the most frequently explored subjects in the literary world. Whether the focus is a confession of love, criticism of love, tale of love, or simply a tale about what love is, such literary pieces force readers to question the true meaning and value of love. Raymond Carver accomplishes this in his short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” As the unadorned setting and the personality of each character unfold, the reader realizes that Carver is making a grave comment on the existence of love. Carver utilizes strong contrast, imagery, and diction to ultimately suggest that love cannot be defined concretely and therefore cannot be defined in words, and because of this, it is better off unexplored. As the story opens, the reader is introduced to two couples. Nick and Laura epitomize the stereotypical “newlywed” relationship, meaning that they are still too fresh in love to realize each other’s shortcomings and question their love. Mel and Terri, on the other hand, have been together for five years, and though they still claim to love one another, a mutual underlying resentment for the other becomes evident as the story progresses. Knowing this, Nick and Laura are characterized as the young “fools in love”, and therefore, their opinions of love are not realistic. Despite Nick being the narrator, he only speaks up a few times to suggest that love is absolute. With such an outspoken narrator, Carver creates a unique situation in which Nick is overpowered in the conversation. This suggests that Nick is inexperienced with love and that his belief in his perfect loving relationship with Laura is just an illusion. Ironically enough, Mel dominates the dialogue of the story, yet he seems to be the most confused about the definition of love. His wife, Terri, speaks about her abusive ex-husband, Ed, and Mel claims that that relationship was not built on love. Several times, Mel scoffs, “If you call that love, you can have it”