Critical Essay On Liz Brent’s Critical Essay on “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”
Liz Brent starts out by saying that George Carver is known for his minimalist writing style. Meaning the dialogue in his stories is the bulk of the content in his books, with minimal use of descriptions. But she argues that through his minimalist writing style he does make use of symbolism and figurative language throughout the story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by Raymond Carver. She argues that themes of love, relationship, communication and alcoholism can be expressed by the use of everyday language in a symbolic way, without the use of so many descriptions. For example she says that Raymond uses the imagery of knight’s armor, beekeeper’s protective clothing, the words “heart” and “pill” in his story, figuratively. At the end of the story she explains how the silence can be translated into the inability to define love (Brent).
She takes the knight’s armor reference, the beekeepers protective clothing, and the use words “heart” and “pill” as symbolism, I do not. My interpretation of the story goes differently with the interpretation Liz Brent illustrates, I think she is overreacting with the beehive analogy she gives, as well as her interpretation of knight armor. Also the pill and alcoholism references she makes are a bit of a stretch for me. I do think she has a point when it comes to the irony from him being a heart doctor and him being unable to completely articulate what “love” is. I looked at the end of the story differently than her. Though there are themes of love and relationships, I would not have to decipher the characters’ conversation to find it out.
Mel is a heart surgeon he knows the ins and out of the human heart but he seems to be struggling to define love to his friends and takes a philosophical approach to the truth by asking questions and telling stories. “Mel thought real love was nothing less than spiritual...