Reading Questions for "What We Talk about When We Talk about Love"
Choose four of the following to respond to for homework. Your responses are due on Googledocs on Wednesday, 3/1/17.
We will be spending most of the week working on Writer's Cafe.
1) Carver begins this story with exposition, and he has the narrator remark how the four people were originally from someplace else (different places). The narrator is talking about parts of the country. Could Carver be saying something else? If so, what?
2) Most (perhaps all) of us would agree with Mel's assessment of the abusive behavior of Terri’s former lover, but what do you think of Mel's feelings about it? Why do you think he feels the need to dictate what Terri feels about her experience? Why do you think Mel is so angry that Terri went to the hospital to be with Ed as he died?
3) What does the conversation about knights have to do with love? Consider the following: What does Mel mean when he says, “But then everyone is always a vessel to someone”? Mel meant “vassal” but got the word wrong—what could Carver be saying with this mistake?
4) The narrator argues, “But sometimes they suffocated in all that armor, Mel. They’d even have heart attacks if it got too hot and they were too tired and worn out. I read somewhere that they’d fall off their horses and not be able to get up because they were too tired to stand with all that armor on them. They’d get trampled by their own horse sometimes.” What does the knights’ armor have to do with love? Do you believe that armor helps or hurts us when it comes to love?
5) What is the purpose of Mel’s story about the elderly couple? How does this story add a new layer to Carver’s definition of love? Mel doesn’t seem to understand the significance of the old man’s reaction, yet he has never been able to forget it. What does this say about him? Think about the language he uses when he finishes his story.
6) Near the end of the story, Mel mentions fantasies of violence toward his ex-wife. He also says that he must have loved her at one time, yet cannot feel it or really even remember it anymore. How does Mel's attitude toward his ex-wife present him in contrast to Terri and what she has said and done about Ed?
7) What do we learn about Mel’s relationship with his children? What does this say about him?
8) Carver made Mel a cardiologist. Why? Is there any irony in this? Also, think about how Mel describes himself with regards to his profession—as a “fucking mechanic.”
9) During the course of the story, the four people just talk--and they never get around to going to dinner even though they have grown very hungry. What symbolism is Carver offering?
10) The title is "What We Talk about When We Talk about Love." Dissect this title--what clue as to the story's theme can you derive from it? (Hint--it isn't just "love.")
11) At the end, the narrator says something that we cannot take literally. He talks about hearing people's hearts and about the human "noise." He cannot, obviously, really hear people's heart beats. What symbolism is Carver offering?
