Love: A complex emotion, under the light of Raymond Carver’s ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

                       Raymond Carver's short story, ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’ focuses on the vicissitudes of human emotion, especially the inconstancy and power of romantic love, however the story was formerly published in 1981 and has been the subject of some debates over the decades with issues made over editor Gordon Lish’s act to edit this story heavily (Champion).

It is also observed, irrespective of editor Gordon Lish's heavy modification, the story fires up the debate regarding the definition of love realized by it's four key characters, i.e., Terri, Mel, Laura and Nick.

Four characters are engaged in discovering the meaning of love by sharing their opinions.

Here it is seen at this early stage classic short story that four characters are sitting around a kitchen table in the afternoon and they are Mel, a cardiologist; Terri, his wife; Nick, the narrator and Laura, Nick's wife. They are drinking gin and discussing what the love is. Mel asserts that true love is “nothing less than spiritual love” and emphasizes the chivalric nature of romance and devotion. Terri recalls the abusive and possessive love of her ex-husband, and maintains that his physical abuse was a sign of his love for her (Carver). Initially, Mel is stunned, but then admits his fantasy of murdering his first wife, Marjorie, because she remains financially dependent on him. Nick and Laura believe that they are too much in love to be torn apart by external circumstances. Mel tells a story about an elderly couple badly injured in a car crash that he attended in the hospital. They were still in love after many years and their sole wish was to see each other. The devotion of the husband and wife affects the group. After musing about the confusing and transitory nature of love, the two couples finish the gin and seem to arrive at a new understanding of their marriages (Champion). But all of them are still sitting there by questioning themselves what is really meant by love after sharing incidents of Terri-Ed, Terri-Mel, Nick-Laura and that old couple, as there are so many factors that may force anyone to rethink about the deeper philosophies of this complex emotion which is being tried to catch here at latter passages.

Terri argues with Mel that though Ed was abusive to her but he loved her extremely.

In this story it is actually observed that arguments and counterarguments between Terri and Mel go on and after telling about her ex-husband, Terri says, “I was in the room with him when he died. He never came up out of it. But I sat with him. He didn't have anyone else.” “He was dangerous,” Mel argues. He claims further, “If you call that love, you can have it.” “It was love,” Terri strongly claims again. “Sure, it's abnormal in most people's eyes. But, he was willing to die for it. He did die for it”,  (Carver). And their argument continues without reaching a single point for a solution where in a good relationship where love sustains it is observed all the way that couple does compromise, sacrifice even love to be looser in between them being visibly irrational where their main rationality holds not to hurt his or her loved one but this thing was completely absent in midst of Terri and Mel.

Laura and Nick by their reactive gestures, ingenuously prove that love is actually what.

At the mid of the story just after the Mel’s dialogue it is seen that Laura, Nick’s wife has said, “I don’t know anything about Ed, or about the situation. But who can judge anyone else’s situation?” Possibly this quote alone throws the arrow to the readers that if each of us take and stick with any particular viewpoint of love then would it be justified or not. Just after it Nick, husband of Laura describes her wife as, “I touched the back of Laura’s hand. She gave me a quick smile. I picked up Laura’s hand. It was warm, the nails polished, perfectly manicured. I encircled the broad wrist with my fingers, and I held her.” By making Nick to say this, the writer Raymond Carver has tried himself to answer that what is the real love when we understand to grab it by our psychological state. As if it is clear even at present days’ societies over the world that when someone is deeply love with any other then he marks his loved one’s every physical, mental, internal and external details very carefully and works his mind to get cherished with a pleasant feeling to come up with that loved one more intimately.  And it can be concluded here that, though none of the mankind is perfect but a relationship can be perfect even between two imperfect people, if both of them can feel them by heart and works their neurons then to establish a perfect relationship between them as if unlike, Terry, Ed, Mel and that old couple, Laura and Nick are also very simple and not out of mistakes but they have got to know each other better than any others cause, they have understood real love is brought up from the heart and not only one but both should have an unlimited eagerness to have each other always, at every passage of this worldly journey.

Works Cited

1.      Carver, Raymond. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. New York: Knopf, 1981.

2.      Champion, Laurie. "What we talk about when we talk." Journal of the Short Story in (1997): 1-9.