...relationship. We have read many interesting short stories and I found that the theme of love kept appearing also with Tartuffe. Love comes in all different ways. I will discuss the theme of love in Winter Dreams by F. Scott Fitzgerald and What We Talk about When We Talk about Love by Raymond Carver. I saw that there was Lust and Love in these two stories. The word lust is defined as an intense longing or unbridled sexual desire.(lust). The word love is defined as a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person. (love). The difference between them is very simple, love is constant and lust is just an intense longing that can end anytime. A person is blinded when they lust for someone but true love is based on respecting each other and understanding each other’s likes and dislikes giving it a better chance to last longer. In Carver’s story, there are two relationships present that I want to go into more detail that will help show whether love or lust is stronger. In Fitzgerald’s story, one man is in love with a woman who doesn't love him and ends up losing a woman for his future. I chose these two stories because they were able to give a variety of love that is present in our world today. Raymond Carver’s title to his story, What We Talk about When We Talk about Love, just seems like a dead end already before you can even start reading. It already gives an obvious idea of what the story is about. Throughout the story Mel does his very best to figure out what love is, while...
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... Communication is Key Communication is when someone gives or receives from another person information about that person's needs, desires, perceptions, knowledge, or affective states. Human beings need to communicate in order to share and makes other understand their sense of self and awareness of who they are. Expressing and listening others self-concept are essential for successful relationships in any area of our lives. Raymond Carver, an American short story writer and poet, was always concerned with the ways in which human beings communicate or fail to communicate with each other and how that affects people’s lives. Carver found the way to express this concern through stories such as “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” and “Cathedral”. He presents situations where the characters of these stories had difficulties communicating their feelings. Caver is known for his distinctive and well...
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...This 1981 short story collection was written by Raymond Carver, it also happens to be a title of one of the stories in the book. The three common themes throughout the 17 short stories are: relationships(love), breakups, alcohol, and some violence. The characters watch love go in and out of their lives through the stories. You can also find one sentence paragraphs, which show important moments in the story or even a powerful shock, this is a very common strategy that Raymond Carver used in all of the stories in this collection. The book is easy to read and as the reader goes through the stories they get longer and the themes are shown more in depth. The characters seem to show their emotions when something happens or when they are flashing...
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...Response Title: what we talk about when we talk about love Author: Raymond Carver Theme Compose a complete sentence that states the author’s purpose (meaning or main point) in the story. What we talk about when we talk about love, written by Raymond Carver, talks about what true love is in everyone’s mind. Setting Describe the occasion, time, place, atmosphere, etc. Give details. The setting is very casual. Two couples are just talking during their spare time in the kitchen of one’s home. It is a good sunny afternoon, relaxed, and also not an annoying rainy or windy day. “My friend Mel McGinnis was talking.” “The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. There were Mel and me and his second wife, Teresa-Terri, we called her- and my wife, Laura.” Language Cite some quotations (at least three) that are particularly meaningful or interesting. Explain why you chose each. “He kept saying, ‘I love you, I love you, you bitch.’” Terri was memorizing what Ed said to her when he beat her. What Ed said was kind of contradictory. Did he hate Terri, or did he love Terri. In Terri’s mind, this is a different way to show his love, but as I know, this is love, while a sick way. The contradictory way he said can show this very completely. Just a several words, but readers can feel what kind of person Ed is. “‘Terri’s a romantic. Terri’s of the kick-me-so-I’ll-know-you-love-me school. Terri...
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...“They’re Not Your Husband” is a short story by Raymond Carver, where he writes about the man named Earl Ober, who is an unemployed salesman, with his wife (Doreen) working as a waitress, at a 24-hour coffee shop. After a night of drinking as he usually does he goes to see the place where his wife works. Here he is treated like a nuisance by his wife. Two men start talking about his wife’s weight and this bothers Earl greatly. He decides to let Doreen know that she (he) has a problem with her weight. After this incident she tries to go on a diet but she ends up not eating at all and not looking healthy. He continues to pressure her, so she would keep dieting. He ends up in the coffee shop again and tries to “sell” her to a man sitting next to him. The story ends abruptly; with Doreen telling everybody that he is a salesman. The total lack of benevolence between husband and wife are clearly seen straight away: “What are you doing here? Doreen said when she saw him sitting there” and later she says: “Don’t talk to me now. I’m busy.” Earl is very embarrassed when two men in business suits start talking about his wife’s weight. He then sits quietly and hopes the two men won’t see the connection between him and his wife, and that is also the reason for him not saying goodbye to his wife. It almost seems like he acquires the point of view the two unidentified men have. The troubles of Doreen and Earl’s relationship are also made clear by this fact, because this clearly shows...
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...“They’re Not Your Husband” is a short story by Raymond Carver, where he writes about the man named Earl Ober, who is an unemployed salesman, with his wife (Doreen) working as a waitress, at a 24-hour coffee shop. After a night of drinking as he usually does he goes to see the place where his wife works. Here he is treated like a nuisance by his wife. Two men start talking about his wife’s weight and this bothers Earl greatly. He decides to let Doreen know that she (he) has a problem with her weight. After this incident she tries to go on a diet but she ends up not eating at all and not looking healthy. He continues to pressure her, so she would keep dieting. He ends up in the coffee shop again and tries to “sell” her to a man sitting next to him. The story ends abruptly; with Doreen telling everybody that he is a salesman. The total lack of benevolence between husband and wife are clearly seen straight away: “What are you doing here? Doreen said when she saw him sitting there” and later she says: “Don’t talk to me now. I’m busy.” Earl is very embarrassed when two men in business suits start talking about his wife’s weight. He then sits quietly and hopes the two men won’t see the connection between him and his wife, and that is also the reason for him not saying goodbye to his wife. It almost seems like he acquires the point of view the two unidentified men have. The troubles of Doreen and Earl’s relationship are also made clear by this fact, because this clearly shows...
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...Tyler K. Schlagheck Professor Daniel Rosenberg English 1102 30 January 2013 Everything Stuck to Him He gets up from his chair and refills their drinks. That's it, he says. End of story. I admit it's not much of a story. I was interested, she says. He doesn't respond and takes his drink to the window. It's darker now but still snowing. She's been gone ten years and these are the stories I still remember about her, he says. I don't even remember the night of your birth, for God's sake. He takes a deep gulp from his drink and stares out the window. The darkness seems to grow with each minute. That's okay, it was so long ago, I – But she stops herself from saying more. She sits quietly and reflects upon her nails. He watches her in the window's reflection. He sighs heavily. She lifts her head. She looks out past him into the darkness. Then she asks if she is going to get to see the city, after all. He says, not tonight, how about tomorrow? She does not reply. I'm going to bed, she says. He continues to stare out the window and does not even seem to hear her. She gets up and goes to her room. He looks out into the cold darkness, remembering the times they used to have together as a family. He sighs and reaches for the bottle. It was going to be a long night after all. Part 2 I decided to change the ending of “Everything Stuck to Him.” Instead of having a sad ending where the man clearly left his wife and moved to Milan for an unknown reason, I decided...
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...Raymond Carver planted a seed into the mind of his audience that imagination prevents stereotypical blindness. This message is important because Carver touched on a current problem that we face in our daily lives known as prejudice. This problem is caused by stereotype disease and the cure for it is imagination because people will be more sensitive to how others feel. In “Cathedral”, Carver showed how Bub, as a sighted person, was struggling with stereotypical blindness and Robert, as a blind person, was able to see with his heart and mind. The elements used to convey this message were characterization, plot, symbolism, and metaphor. The first element that Carver used was characterization. The three characters of “Cathedral” are Robert, Bub and his wife. Carver used dialogue in the story to show each character’s personality traits. Robert is a blind man who doesn't allow his disability to affect his quality of life. He can do all the things that a non-handicapped person can do such as eating, and smoking, as well as watching television. Additionally, Robert is able to have meaningful relationships with people by connecting with them on an emotional level. For example, he was in love with his deceased wife and he has a strong friendship with Bub's wife. The tone that Carver displayed for Robert was genuine affection. Speaking to Bub one night, Robert stated, “I’ll stay up until you’re ready to turn in. We haven’t had a chance to talk. Know what I mean? I feel like me and her...
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...story Cathedral by Raymond Carver, I found a few different kinds of language and communication. As human beings, we have trouble with communicating, understanding what someone else is trying to tell us, or expressing ourselves from time to time. This can be very misleading and can sometimes cause a problem without trying to. Cathedral is trying to tell us that there are different ways of communicating and that there are different languages other than actually speaking. Trying to put yourself in someone else's position can change your perspective. In the beginning of the story, the narrator's wife is expecting a visit from an old friend named Robert that she used to work with, whom is blind. The narrator (husband) is not happy about it at all and does not give a valid reason for it, even though the wife recently attempted suicide, he does not think about how the blind man's visit may help her; "I was not enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me."(Carver 34). He has a hard time...
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...components that contribute to the theme of the short story “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” by Raymond Carver are plot and character. The main character of the story plays a big role in creating the theme and the symbols that are prominent also contribute to the theme. This author used these key components to help the readers understand the main point of the story. The main character Mel and the symbols love and gin are all important to identify the theme in this short story. The theme in the story is the complicated meaning of love. The character Mel is a round character in the story. His character is sometimes hard to understand and figure out and also is shown to have more than one side. He is a very confused character...
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...Much of life results from choices we make. How we meet every circumstance, and also how we allow those circumstances to affect us dictates our life. In Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady With the Little Dog," we are given a chance to take a look inside two characters not unlike ourselves. As we are given insight into these two people, their character and nature unfolds, presenting us with people we can relate to. Even if we fail to grasp the fullness of a feeling or circumstance, we are still touched on our own level, evidencing the brilliance of Chekhov’s writing. In the exposition of the story, Chekhov immediately delves into his character generation, introducing us to both Anna Sergeevna and Dmitri Gurov, the main players in the story. He also gives us a physical description of Anna, as well as a beginning presentation of Dmitri’s character. Of Anna, Chekhov writes, “…a young woman, not very tall, blond, in a beret, walking along the embankment; behind her ran a white spitz” (Chekhov 144). Of Dmitri he comments, “Gurov, who had already spent two weeks in Yalta…began to take an interest in new faces” (Chekhov 144). Chekhov immediately offers a feel for how each character will shape up to be, and presents a chance for us (the reader) to attach ourselves to these perhaps not-so-unique individuals. Without further ado, Chekhov expounds on his initial description of Dmitri through the next five paragraphs. We learn that he is almost forty, has three children and a wife, but that...
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...When I was twenty years old, I became a kind of apprentice to a man named Andrew Lytle, whom pretty much no one apart from his negligibly less ancient sister, Polly, had addressed except as Mister Lytle in at least a decade. She called him Brother. Or Brutha—I don’t suppose either of them had ever voiced a terminal r. It was maybe an hour before midnight at the Avalon Nightclub in Chapel Hill, and the Miz was feeling nervous. I didn’t pick up on this at the time—I mean, I couldn’t tell. To me he looked like he’s always looked, like he’s looked since his debut season, back when I first fell in love with his antics: all bright-eyed and symmetrical-faced, fed on genetically modified corn, with the swollen, hairless torso of the aspiring professional wrestler he happened to be and a smile you could spot as Midwestern American in a blimp shot of a soccer stadium. Late in 1998 or early in ’99—during the winter that straddled the two—I spent a night on and off the telephone with a person named John Fahey. The first moves with the courteous lento of one of Peter Taylor’s stories; the last has the directness of something by Raymond Carver; the second, more placeless and more contemporary, could be by lots of writers—Jennifer Egan, or maybe Sam Lipsyte. Actually, all are the opening sentences of essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan, from his second book, “Pulphead” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $16). It is obvious enough that they are by a talented storyteller, who has learned from fiction (as...
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...Caesar Allusions to Nikolai V. Gogol and his short story "The Overcoat" permeate Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Namesake, beginning with Gogol's being the name the protagonist is called through most of the book. Yet few of the reviewers of the novel mentioned Nikolai Gogol at all in their discussions of the novel, except to describe the protagonist Gogol's loathing of his name, or to quote without comment or explanation Dostoevski's famous line, "We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat." So far, no one has looked beyond the surfaces to examine the significance of the allusions to Gogol that are so much a part of the fabric of Lahiri's novel. Without the references to Nikolai Gogol, it is easy to read the novel as simply another account of the difficulties of a first-generation American trying to "find himself," nicely written, but not particularly thought-provoking. It may seem merely unexamined documentation of the confusion of its main character, a confusion which itself has become a bit of a cliché. The conventional wisdom about first generation Asian Americans is that an awareness of two cultures is a kind of curse which makes them unable to understand who they "really" are, as if identity were nothing more than cultural identification. Read with an understanding of the significance of the Gogol story, however, the novel is much more clearly an elucidation of the causes and meaning of that confusion, which comes not only from having a multiple cultural identity, but from...
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...(hereafter: FC) reached cult status after the film adaptation by David Fincher was released in 1999, and widespread and divided critical reception was soon to follow. Much of the current debate about Fight Club focuses on the political implications of the text, but most often recourse to it by way of referencing the film. These arguments usually question or celebrate the transgressive potentials of the book (Giroux; Mendieta), or address issues of masculinity brought into the fore by their literary and cinematic representations emergent in the same decade (Tuss; Friday). However, few, if any, have addressed the literary aspirations of the text and its author. Although none of the approaches to the thematic concerns of Fight Club are unjustified, in the argument that follows I will suggest that conclusions drawn and critical judgments passed have been hasty, and not only failed to take into account the formal aspects of story-telling, but that the narrative features of Palahniuk’s text have largely went unexplored, and constitute a blind spot of the reception. Critics condemning or acclaiming the novel, and, indeed, many a cultic reader of Palahniuk ignored Fight Club as a literary narrative, and have inadvertently been repeating the catchphrases of the text, either reinforcing or trying to undermine what they have understood as their meaning. I see the significance of Palahniuk’s fiction and the literary event of Fight Club’s publication in somewhat different terms. Palahniuk’s emphasis...
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...DEATH OF A SALESMAN Study Guide for Teachers World-Class Theatre in the Heart of Vermont 703 Main Stre e t , W eston, V T 05161 www.westonplayhouse.o rg The Weston Playhouse Theatre Company The 2010 WPTC Teacher’s Workshop and the School Matinee and Touring Production is made possible in part by grants from: The Bay and Paul Foundations Mountain Room Foundation National Endowment for the Arts The Shubert Foundation The Vermont Country Store and The Orton Family Vermont Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities With additional contributions from: Black River Produce Berkshire Bank Clark’s Quality Foods Price Chopper’s Golub Foundation Ezra Jack Keats Foundation Okemo Mountain Resort Thrifty Attic …and an ever growing family of individuals who believe in the impact that the performing arts can have on its community. This Teachers Study Guide was compiled and edited by Rena Murman. Credit and thanks to the following theatres for materials used or referenced from study guides created for Death of a Salesman: Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis, MN; Kennedy Center, Washington, DC; Lyric Theatre, London; Royal Lyceum Theatre Company, Edinburgh; Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, CT. © 2010 Weston Playhouse Theatre Company, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational and cultural institution. WPTC Performance Guides may be duplicated at no charge for educational purposes only. They may not be sold or used in other publications without the express written consent...
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