The Presence of Light in Carver’s “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” Raymond Carver is the author of “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” he shows us in his story how a conversation about love can sometimes make people wonder what love really is. They begin to question if they ever knew what love was. One of the characters explains how love could easily just turn into a memory. The story takes place in the kitchen one afternoon. “The sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink (356).” There are four main characters in Carver’s short story; Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist. Mel’s wife if is Terri. Nick is the narrator of the short story and his wife is named Laura. The couple are sitting around discussing
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The narrator tells us that, “the afternoon sun was like a presence in this room, the spacious light of ease and generosity (359).” The light is being personified at this moment. The two couples made a toast to love and light. They treat love as if it were a real human. Even though their day had consisted of conversations about stalking, suicide, crazy ex’s and most importantly love; as we can see they were sharing a moment with each other. We know this because the narrator says, “We could have been anywhere, somewhere enchanted. We raised our glasses again and grinned at each other like children who had agreed on something forbidden (359).” The sunlight lets them share this moment with each other because it is still shining in the kitchen. You can tell that they know that they are not really sure about the real meaning of love. They compare love to an act of children. Carver shows us in the story that the sun is bright at the beginning and gone by the end. It gives representation of how the friends become extremely confused about the meaning of love. When Mel told them about the story of the elderly couple, you can see where the moment becomes awkward. The silence after Mel’s story on page three sixty-two can show us how the couple’s interpretation of love could possibly be changing. Nick says, “the light was draining out of the room, going back through the window where it had came from” (362). Even though the light was fading away, no one decided to get up and turn on the kitchen light. When the light is bright in the story, there is a lot of dialogue. The moment the conversation about love becomes personal and more in depth, the sun in the kitchen slowly fades away. At the end of the story, the room went completely dark. Mel, Terri, Nick, and Laura just sat there in the darkness. Nick said that he could hear his heartbeat. Not one of them moved. As we can see the sun
The narrator tells us that, “the afternoon sun was like a presence in this room, the spacious light of ease and generosity (359).” The light is being personified at this moment. The two couples made a toast to love and light. They treat love as if it were a real human. Even though their day had consisted of conversations about stalking, suicide, crazy ex’s and most importantly love; as we can see they were sharing a moment with each other. We know this because the narrator says, “We could have been anywhere, somewhere enchanted. We raised our glasses again and grinned at each other like children who had agreed on something forbidden (359).” The sunlight lets them share this moment with each other because it is still shining in the kitchen. You can tell that they know that they are not really sure about the real meaning of love. They compare love to an act of children. Carver shows us in the story that the sun is bright at the beginning and gone by the end. It gives representation of how the friends become extremely confused about the meaning of love. When Mel told them about the story of the elderly couple, you can see where the moment becomes awkward. The silence after Mel’s story on page three sixty-two can show us how the couple’s interpretation of love could possibly be changing. Nick says, “the light was draining out of the room, going back through the window where it had came from” (362). Even though the light was fading away, no one decided to get up and turn on the kitchen light. When the light is bright in the story, there is a lot of dialogue. The moment the conversation about love becomes personal and more in depth, the sun in the kitchen slowly fades away. At the end of the story, the room went completely dark. Mel, Terri, Nick, and Laura just sat there in the darkness. Nick said that he could hear his heartbeat. Not one of them moved. As we can see the sun