Research Paper on:
Raymond Carver's Short Stories and Relationships

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
matter how many eons come and go, there will always be this push and pull type of relationship between men and women. It is this struggle that seems to have  fascinated Raymond Carver the most, as his short story collections all serve to illustrate relationship issues between men and women. A good deal of the short stories involve drinking,  or in some way mention the act of getting drunk. Many of Carvers characters are blue collar workers who have done everything too fast, too soon, and too much. They  struggle to make ends meet and their marriages work. What is particularly notable is Carvers depiction of how real people avoid talking about the real issues that they are thinking  about. Many of his characters avoid facing reality by drinking to excess. In Carvers work, What we Talk About When We Talk About Love, begins and ends with a  before dinner drinking binge. Four people are sitting around getting sloshed: Nick and Laura, his wife, Mel and Terri. Terri, Mels wife asks the casual, but loaded question: What is  does love mean? The relationship that is being explored in this story is how men and women talk at each other, but neither hears the other. In addition, he quite  clearly shows how the concept of love differs between people, regardless of gender. "There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself.  But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love?"(Carver 1989). For example, Terris first husband was abusive, yet she still feels  that he loved her. Mel is indignant and argues with her, stating that any man that would do that do a woman was not capable of love. However, Terri, whose