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Raymond Carver Visual Essay Stephanie Hom
THESIS In many of his short stories, Raymond Carver addresses the difficulties of communication and how, oftentimes, people find themselves unable to express their feelings through the mere use of words. He suggests that it is because of this inability to effectively communicate that people are unable to make lasting connections.
Topic Sentence The characters in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” essentially lack the ability to articulate their emotions. They believe that they know what love is, based on experience; however, they are unable to describe the essence of love with actual words. They suffer from the inability to communicate effectively and, therefore, are unable to form lasting relationships.
Quote “Dominant ‘obsessions’ ... in “What We Talk About [When We Talk About Love] are the feelings of dislocation and lost identity that his characters experience as well as an awareness of random, uncontrollable changes in their lives. He expressed these concerns by depicting his characters as isolated from others and mirrored this alienated sense of being through minimal language, evoking his characters' inability to communicate their circumstances” (Stull, 3).
Quote “‘I’ll tell you what real love is,’ Mel said… ‘All this, all of this love we’re talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I’m wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don’t know anything, and I’m the first one to admit it’” (177).
Topic Sentence Because of his inadequate communicating skills, the narrator of “Cathedral” struggles immensely when it comes to expressing his feelings. He fails to communicate effectively and therefore finds himself unable to form lasting and fulfilling relationships.
Quote “[The narrator] is numb and isolated, a modern man for whom integration with the human race would be so difficult that it is futile. Consequently he hides by failing to try, anesthetizes himself with booze, and explains away the world with sarcasm. He does nothing to better his lot” (Facknitz, 5).
Quote Only at the end, when he allows himself to identify with the blind man, does the narrator feel any sense of personal connection. Ironically, there is no literal conversation, suggesting that words are oftentimes insufficient in regards to communication. “The blind man [Robert] proposes a solution… the narrator draws a cathedral while Robert's hand rides his…When Robert takes his hand and makes him close his eyes to touch the cathedral, he "sees." Even when he is told that he can open his eyes, he chooses not to, for he is learning what he has long been incapable of perceiving and even now can not articulate” (Facknitz, 5).
Quote “Carver redeems the narrator by releasing him from the figurative blindness that results in a lack of insight into his own condition and which leads him to trivialize human feelings and needs. Indeed, so complete is his misperception that the blind man gives him a faculty of sight that he is not even aware that he lacks” (Facknitz, 4)
Topic Sentence While many of his characters prove unable to form satisfying personal connections, Carver creates foil characters to help demonstrate that even simple, yet sincere, relations skills can establish fulfilling relationships.
Quote “She told the blind man she'd written a poem and he was in it… The blind man made a tape. He sent her the tape. She made a tape. This went on for years... She sent tapes from Moody AFB, McGuire, McConnell, and finally Travis, near Sacramento, where one night she got to feeling lonely and cut off from people she kept losing in that moving-around life” (358). The narrator’s wife and the blind man demonstrate Carver’s theme because of their open, honest relationship. They prove that simple yet efficient communication is the foundation of true, personal connections.
Quote “She'd worked with this blind man all summer… They'd become good friends my wife and the blind man. How do I know these things? She told me. And she told me something else. On her last day in the office, the blind man asked if he could touch her face. She agreed to this. She told me he ran his fingers over every part of her face, her nose--even her neck! She never forgot it. She even tried to write a poem about it. She was always writing a poem. She wrote a poem or two every year, usually after something really important happened to her” (357). The narrator is clearly jealous of the relationship between the blind man and his wife. Carver uses this relationship to demonstrate how sincerity, despite all the difficulties of communication, can serve as the outlet necessary to express one’s emotions. This relationship severely contrasts that of the narrator and his wife because of the absence of communication in the latter. This proves Carver’s theme that effective communication can form lasting bonds and that the lack of it yields insincere and strained relationships.
Bibliography Carver, Raymond. Where I'm Calling From New and Selected Stories. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Mark A. R. Facknitz, "'The Calm,' 'A Small Good Thing,' and 'Cathedral': Raymond Carver and the Rediscovery of Human Worth," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 23, No. 3, Summer, 1986, pp. 287-96 Stull, William L. “Raymond Carver: A Bibliographical Checklist.” American Book Collector 8, No.1 (January 1987): 17-30. *ALL PICTURES WERE TAKEN FROM GOOGLE IMAGES*
