Interpreting a text is a process in which one must take into account many details that the author provides or leaves out. Even though many believe that what the text actually says is what is most important, what one cannot actually find there is sometimes more important than what one does actually encounter. It is through this lens that Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” should be read, not through what is directly talked about, but what is not said.
As its title states, a significant portion of the short story is dedicated to dialogue, superficially discussing the different character’s conceptions of love. Nevertheless, throughout the tale there are darker underpinnings that include mortality and sexuality. Furthermore, the main character does not give significant textual contributions to the discussion, but prefers to act, something that should also be taken into account. Therefore, in Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, it is what the characters do not directly talk about, including sexuality, death and actions, that should be taken into account when interpreting this very interesting tale.
Furthermore, the title warns the reader that the story will not actually be about love, but the underlying aspects that one discusses when one has a dialogue about this subject. In this sense, it marks a distinction, saying that the matter will be what one really talks about when one appears to be talking about love. Therefore, from the mere title, one can see that Carver is warning his readers that they should not limit themselves to interpreting the conceptions of love in the story, but that they should look past the superficial banter in order to perceive what actually is at stake.
Even though the conversations are centered on love, they include reflections on many other, darker matters of the human experience. Throughout the short story, one can find different points of view on what love should be, yet these answers tend to be short and underdeveloped with regards to the other stories that are told within the tale. These subjects include sexuality and death, two of the more negative and often shunned aspects of the human experience throughout history.
Therefore, one could interpret that Carver is saying that when one talks about love, one really uses the subject to introduce one’s deeper, more dangerous thoughts in an innocuous manner. For example, even though one could believe that love should be related to sexuality, there is surprisingly little to this regard in the tale.
Carver draws attention to this fact by having Mel say fuck a couple of times. However, he employs it as an expletive in the mouth of the drunk character, not to refer to copulation; for instance, he says that they “worked like fuck on them most of the night” (Carver 360). Sexuality is not talked about at all, and this should catch people by surprise in a conversation about love between adults.
On the other hand, death is pervasive in the tale, as there are various mentions of homicides and suicide. This is presented in the fourth paragraph, in which Terri references her previous partner. “Terri said the man she lived with before she lived with Mel loved her so much he tried to kill her” (Carver 356). This, first, definition of love should be surprising for audiences, as it directly relates it to murder. This sets off the many mentions of death, which include horse tramplings, cardiac arrest for knights in armor and bee stings.
The conversations constantly deviate from love to these darker subjects, and one can see that Carver is saying that one does not talk about love at all when one talks about love, but the darker aspects of the human experience instead. These aspects that one does not usually talk about appear frequently in the tale, and one can see that their talking about love does not really lead them anywhere but the subject of mortality. It is important to note that, even though this is not directly discussed, Mel does state that love is inefficient at fending off mortality, as one readily finds love when the other partner passes away (Carver 359).
As such, one could interpret that Carver is proposing that one should not really talk about love at all, but that this should actually be shown through actions. For him, words would not suffice to explain what this concept means to everybody. This is notorious when he displays affection towards his wife when she asks him to say something about love. “For an answer, I took Laura’s hand and raised it to my lips. I made a big production out of kissing her hand” (Carver 358). Even though this may seem a bout of corniness, it actually makes a big point in the short story.
The majority of the short story includes dialogue, yet the main character provides his answer of the tale’s motivating question through an action. Even though they are all talking about love and stating their points of view, Nick prefers to act about love rather than talk about it, as the title of the story would have him do. By giving the reader Nick’s fly-on-the-wall point of view, the reader is shown everything through his eyes and allowed occasional glimpses into his psyche. Nevertheless, at the end, it serves to emphasize his quietness and the motivation for his very important actions.
In fact, this is one of the main differences that the short story provides with respect to a play. If it were in theater form, Nick would obviously not be the narrator, and Mel would be the virtual star of the play. The little details that the former does to display love towards his wife would be invisible with respect to the latter’s actions.
The short story format directs the reader towards the following display of affection, for example: “I touched the back of Laura’s hand. She gave me a quick smile. I picked up Laura’s hand. It was warm” (Carver 357). By writing the tale as a short story, Carver forces readers to take Nick into account, serving as a foil to Mel’s almost lunatic rants. However, by framing the tale as a short story, Carver highlights Nick’s point of view, in which it is more important to act about love than to try to establish its true, universal form.
In fact, this seems to be impossible throughout the play, even though it is what they attempt to talk about. Even though they never actually say it, love seems to simply have different meanings depending on who you ask. The wiser couple, Nick and Laura, seems to be aware of this fact, as they drink “To love”, instead of Mel’s proposal of toasting to “true love” (Carver 359). For them, love would not be an absolute, but a particular, contrary to what Mel believes (Carver 356). True love would not be possible because this seeks to universalize something that is very particular to each person or couple, as can be seen when Laura speaks for her and her partner, defining love “For us” (Carver 358).
In conclusion, when reading Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” one should take into account the details that are not present in the dialogues, such as sexuality, death and actions, in order to understand the story better. The author emphasizes this from the beginning, stating talk twice in the tile, and making a stark difference between talking about love, and what one really talks about when one discusses the subject. This proves to be mainly death, with frequent references to murders and a suicide attempt; the conversation always returns to mortality, with amorous connections serving only as a pretense for these darker underpinnings. Love seems to be impotent in the face of human mortality. On the other hand, sexuality is not reference at all, even though it is a conversation about love between adults who are drinking; this is highlighted by Mel’s use of fuck only as an expletive.
Finally, the first person point of view in a dialogue-ridden tale only serves to highlight the importance of simple actions, which would be invisible in a theater format. In this sense, Carver seems to be proposing that one may talk constantly about love, yet it is really actions that count, defining love through the things that one may do towards one’s partner. It is lovely to see how a short story can talk so much about what one does not talk about when one talks about love, depicting the human experience in a very real and vivid way.
Works Cited
Carver, Raymond. (1981). “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” 356-363. PDF.
