Hearts in the Darkness Drunken Discoveries of Love
In the short story "What We Talk about When We Talk about Love", Raymond Carver attempts to give us insight into the most ambiguous word in the English language: love. Through means of dialogue between the story’s four main characters, the theme of love and its multifarious meanings are explored as Carver gives us insight into the one question that has sought to be answered throughout all of history and literature: “What is love?” The story’s main characters offer not one, but three answers by describing three different kinds of love: temporary physical love, a simple but real day to day love and finally true, ideal love. Mel describes his ideas of a temporary, physical love as “the impulse that drives you to someone special. ... It is quickly made evident that Mel regards the love he himself has experienced as such a love; as something changeable that is simply fulfilling a need at the time but is not necessarily permanent. ... What happened to that love? ... His saying this not only goes to show that Mel has personally experienced love that is fleeting and temporary, it also reveals his mystification towards the disappearance of that so- called love.