Raymond Carvers novel `Where im calling from`

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Love as Portrayed in Raymond Carver 's Where I 'm Calling From

A story is often regarded and criticized according to the standards of two of its major elements : plot and characters . As most contemporary spend much of their attention on these two elements , one of them decided to deviate and focused purely on the importance of the stories themes - Raymond Carver . This characteristic of him was seen right after the publishing of his book entitled Where I 'm Calling From . A collection

of Carver 's short stories , Where I 'm Calling From ' was written under the themes of human relationships , particularly tackling the idea of love . It was composed Carver 's thirty short stories out of the thirty seven he has written . Some of these stories are What WeTalk About When We Talk About Love , Cathedral , Why Don 't You Dance , Neighbors , and So Much Water So Close to Home . In all of these stories , love was portrayed by Carver as a thing bearing pain and frustrations instead of happiness and fulfilment . In the following sections , some of the aforementioned stories will be used to analyze further Carver 's portrayal of love in his book

Marriage as Binding Factor of the Stories

The idea of marriage was very much salient in the stories written by Carver . Almost all of the characters in his stories are involved in marriage . The interesting thing about this is the depiction of Carver of marriage in his stories . It was clearly evident that most of the stories are exploring the nature of marriage and the idea of it being a not-so-happy situation . In the stories , marriage seems to be regarded more negatively . Most of the characters were illustrated as having marriage problems with their partners . To show and to prove this claim , the married couple in the story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love ' shows how marriage could be destructive to one 's individuality . The two are having disagreements all the time which made one of them to be suicidal . The pictures of a bandaged head , cuts , and blood are frequently used by Carver to depict the dark side of marriage and perhaps love in general - that it can be destructive and homicidal

On the other hand , another image of love was depicted in the story So Much Water Close to Home . Here , Carver portrayed love as a source of frustration and violence . Stuart , the husband , is having tendencies of hurting physically his wife . However , at the end of the story , Stuart saw how his actions to his wife would bring the same , or probably worse effects to him

His wife got more loyal and dependent to her , despite his rude manner

With these similarities in the use of marriage in Carver 's stories love was able to be projected different from the usual s of the past . Instead of giving inspiration , love is giving away pain and sufferings to the people involved...