So Much Water So Close To Home
Raymond Carver

This short story by Raymond Carver is about this man called Stuart. Stuart lives with his wife Claire. The story is told from Claire, and her perspective. In the start, the story takes place at a river, some miles away from Stuart and Claire’s home. At this river Stuart and some of his friends, is out for a real man trip. They are fishing, drinking and doing all, of such things men does on a trip like this. In the middle of this trip, one of the men finds a dead body of a girl, in the river. They do not call the police, because they will not ruin the trip. So they decide to call the police after the trip when they was about to go home. Stuart comes home and telling this story to Claire, and that’s really where the story takes start and the action first begins. Shortly after this we can see, that the real action, is about, Stuart and Claire’s relationship, and how Claire is.
The settings in the start are at a river, miles away from Stuart’s home. It’s not described very well, but I have an imagination, at how this place the men is at, is a normally place in a forest near a river. Maybe there is a bonfire place, with some stones around it, and they are sitting there in a circle. Otherwise the story takes place several different locations, there isn’t described very much in this short story.
A characterization of Claire:
In the text, it appears that Claire is mentally ill. It is only, if you read the whole story, it makes sense for you that she is mentally ill. Because, it is the situations that she is in, where she acts like a mentally ill person. The first situation we have, is when Stuart and Claire is sitting at the table and eating. Claire will have Stuart attention, So instead of saying something to Stuart, she actually drops her plate down. Already here, we gets an idea, of that something is wrong with Claire. Later we are finding out, that Claire has been at a place “the doctor recommends” there actually are some kind of an institution for people, who is mentally ill. We also get to know, that Claire ones where on pills.
In another situation with Claire, and how we can see she clearly has some problems, is when she meets this young man on the street, who wants to help her, but Claire is feeling that the only thing, the young man want’s, is to have sex with her. Claire is scared of men in a weird way. It could have something to do, with how Stuart is treating her. She always wants to get riddle of problems with sex. Here there is a situation with Claire, where Stuart is grabbing on her, and setting the stage up, so they can have sex. But Claire is keep saying no to Stuart, but it’s like he doesn’t want to stop. Otherwise, these two situations, Claire is starting to talk about herself in third person. About this young girl who is doing different things. This is defiantly a thing that indicate mentally illness, when someone starting to talk about herself in third person. One more thing that defiantly indicate mentally illness, is when Claire is at the hairdresser, and asks the woman who is clipping Claire’s hair, “did you ever wish you were somebody else, or else just nobody, nothing, nothing at all?”

Narrator:
The text is written in third person narrator and it is written in past tense.
The ending is nearly crazy. You have no idea of what is going to happened. But if I have to guess, this story ends with Claire committing suicide.