Mel and his wife Terri have their two friends Nick and Laura over. As they sit around the table drinking before they go out to eat they start talking. The main topic they talk about is love and how it's defined. At first Terri tells about her and Ed's love for each other and how he'd abuse her while saying he loved her. Mel said that wasn't love. Then Mel told a story about and older couple he saw in the ER. They were both in body casts and lived although no one expected them too. He explains how the man became depressed because he couldn't see his wife. This is pretty much the conclusion of the story and no definition of love is ever found.
Response
“What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” confused me on what meaning Raymond Carver was trying to express. I understood that all the characters were trying to define what they thought love was. They all justified what they thought it was by their own experiences. No one person would agree with another because they never had the same experiences.
As I evaluate this story based on formalism I find one thing very apparent. At the beginning both couples are respectful of each other and love each other. Mel loves Terri and keeps telling her that. Then Terri begins telling the story about her ex Ed and how he loved her so much. He one time dragged her by her feet around the house and told her he loved her as he was doing this. Terri knew that this was true love and that Ed truly meant it. When Terri and Ed broke up Ed was still following her and finally he killed himself. This was representing the love that he had for Terri or at least that’s what she thought. He died for her and that’s true love, from Terri’s viewpoint. Mel found that to be unacceptable. There is no way anyone can hurt the one they truly love. Terri and Mel always disagreed with this scenario and they discussed it no longer.
As the story continues you can see how the love that Mel and Terri have fades. Mel starts to drink more and more gin. As a heart doctor he has to work every day and never has the nights off because he is on call. This one night he is free and so that’s why he’s having dinner with his wife and friends. That’s also why he is drinking so heavily because he needed to relieve stress. This drinking starts to make Mel’s talking and thoughts blurred throughout the story. This relates to the story because its gets more scattered and confusing towards the end. In the end I don’t even understand the definition of love if there even is one.
Throughout this whole story there is no apparent definition found. They just give examples but never explain how this relates to love and how it’s defined. I think love it hard for them all define because as Mel says they are young and there is so much more to their lives to learn. They won’t know what love is until they’re older and they’ve lived their life to the fullest. This is how the story is constructed too. There is no definite answer in the end because we must find it out on our own; no one can define it for us. We must define love by the actions we take and the relationships we have.
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