what we talk about when we talk about love

A detailed Summary of what we talk about when we talk about love

The short story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, by Raymond Carver, is about two married couples drinking gin and having a talk about the nature of love. The conversation is a little sloppy, and the characters make some comments which could either be meaningless because of excessive alcohol in the bloodstream, or could be the characters' true feelings because of excessive alcohol in the bloodstream. Overall, the author uses this conversation to show that when a relationship first begins, the people involved may have misconceptions about their love, but this love will eventually die off or develop into something much more meaningful.

The author sets the scene with the two couples sitting around a table drinking gin and making small talk. The real story begins when the topic of love comes up.

Terri, Mel's wife, was once married to an abusive man, who "...went on dragging me (Terri) around the living room. My head kept knocking on things.... What do you do with love like that?.... People are different, Mel. Sure, sometimes he may have acted crazy. Okay. But he loved me. In his own way maybe, but he loved me." (pp 110-111) To the reader, it seems hard to believe that there could be love i

Later on, Mel describes his former relationship in which he believed to have found love, but now realizes that the love was lost somewhere along the line. Mel says, "There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do." (p 114) Mel's former relationship was once full of love, but eventually the love withered away until it was gone. Also, Mel talks about how love can continue even if you lose your first love. Mel says, "And the terrible thing, the terrible thing is, but the good thing too, the saving grace, you might say, is that if something happened to one of us-excuse me for saying this-but if something happened to one of us tomorrow I think the other person would grieve for a while, you know, but then the surviving party would go out and love again, have someone else soon enough." (p 114) In this quote, Mel reveals that if any one of them dies, his or her spouse would eventually lose the love they once had for him or her, and would then go and love another. So, the author has shown us that love can die off and be replaced by anger or hatred, or even love for another.

In contrast to these fairly pessimistic views on love, the author describes an instance in which a couple found true love. Mel tells an anecdote of an old couple that was admitted to the emergency room after a very bad car accident. The two people were wrapped up in full body casts, and as a result they could not see each other.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Terri's Terri, Raymond Carver, Terri Mel, People Mel, Terri Mel's, Laura Nick, Nick Sounds, Nick Laura, Kay Block, love mel, love author, excessive alcohol bloodstream, gin talk, love eventually, love love, former relationship, misconceptions love, excessive alcohol, drinking gin talk, true feelings, love wither,

Approximate Word count = 993
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English