Interpretation Post

In Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love,” Carver exemplifies the nature of love and the inadequacy of language when describing love. In the story, the core of the plot takes place over a course of an evening. The characters, Nick and Laura, and Mel and Terri McGinnis, sit around the kitchen table at the McGinnis’ apartment, drinking gin and talking, before they all go out to dinner together. The only movement around the table during the involved the characters getting up to get more gin.” Mel is divorced, and Terri is his second wife. Terri is also divorced and Mel is her second husband. Mel and Terri have been married for four years, together for five. Nick and Laura are married, and have been together only eighteen months. Collectively, all of these characters, their stories, their experiences with “love” help portray that love is truly more than words.

Summary
“As the story opens, the narrator explains that “The gin and tonic water kept going around, and we somehow got on the subject of love.” Mel, who had once gone to seminary school, claims that “real love was nothing less than spiritual love.” They then begin to discuss Terri’s former husband, Ed, who was physically abusive to her, had threatened Mel on several occasions, and eventually shot himself in the head, dying three days later. Mel argues that that is not real love, while Terri insists that Ed did love her. While Nick and Laura’s relationship seems to be completely harmonious, and their interactions with each other kind and affectionate, Mel and Terri’s interactions take on a tone of controlled menace, barely covering a deep-seated resentment between the two of them.

The conversation continues on the subject of love while Mel becomes increasingly drunk. He gives an example of what he considered to be “real love.” He tells them about an elderly couple who had gotten into a terrible car accident when they were hit by a teenage boy. Both of them nearly died, but they continued to survive, although both were covered from head to toe in bandages. Mel explains that, one day, the old man explained to him in tears that he was upset that, although he and his wife’s beds were next to each other in the hospital room, he could not turn his head to see her face, because of his bandages. Mel is taken with the idea that this man loved his wife so much it was nearly killing him not to be able to look at her: “I mean, it was killing the old fart just because he couldn’t look at the ... woman.”

Mel, now clearly drunk, decides that he’d like to call and talk to his kids, who live with his ex-wife, Marjorie. He explains that Marjorie is allergic to bee stings, and part of him would like to appear at her front door and release a swarm of bees into her house. But he is baffled that he feels such hatred for her now, when he knows that he did once truly love her. Mel then decides against calling his children, and all four finish off the last of the gin. Mel erratically turns his glass of gin upside, allowing it to spill all over the table. “Gin’s gone,” he says. “Now what?” Terri responds. At this point the narrator ends the story with a description of the four friends, sitting in silence around the table: “I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone’s heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, no one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.” “

Interpretation
One of the most important aspects of this story is the elusiveness of love. Despite the characters efforts to come up with a tangible definition of love, the nature of love is left undefined. One of the best examples of this is when Mel tells his friends about a couple who almost died in a car crash, but the conclusion only leaves his friends confused. And the conversation then turns into a discussion about how strange it is that they have all loved more than one person. Mel basically babbles on and on. He does the majority of the talking in this story, and I believe this symbolizes his own confusion on loves. He is trying so hard to prove that he knows love that his ramblings only convey his loss of words to truly describe what it is.

Likewise, Terri is so sure in her definition of love that she gets lost in her beliefs. She even seems the most certain out of all of her friends in the definition of love. She claims that her ex-boyfriend loved her through acts of violence. This seems unrealistic to us, but Terri made herself believe that he truly loved her. However, when Mel challenged her beliefs the only thing she would fall back on was her intuition. She could not provide any certainty in her explanation on love.
Laura and Nick are a little bit different. They also believe they understand the nature of love but they say it in fewer words than Terri and Mel. They merely demonstrate their love through physical gestures in hopes that this will clarify where words cannot.

All four characters are continuously drinking throughout this exploration for a definite definition of love. However, I believe that the alcohol represents more than just that. The more they drink the more they become intoxicated. This mirrors their varying descriptions of love. As the story unfolds, and larger amounts of gin are consumed, the more confusion roams in the story until they are all left silent by the end of the story....but only first by finishing off the gin.

Carver depicts through varying discussions and symbols that words are not enough when addressing love.

Enormous Wings

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The Boys Next Door

The Boys Next Door is a really touching story about adults with mental disorders. When I first began the book, I did not realize it was going to be about adults with mental disorders. But as the play went on, I began to pick up on the characters identities. However, I felt like it was a bit overdone: the direction of the play and the interaction of the characters. It is a humorous play without poking fun at the characters life situations. But I feel like I could not complete feel the impact of their lives…the character’s lives.

I really enjoyed visiting the alliance for independence group home. The tour helped reveal the hearts of the residences and of the employers. People with mental disorders are no different then us. We all have different weaknesses in our lives. I feel, in regards to the mentally handicap, we often say we should treat them like children and stuff around those lines. But then I feel like we plant that mentality in our minds that we try so hard not to treat people with mental disorders differently that we unintentionally still do. Does that even make sense?

I feel like in order to sincerely treat the mentally disabled at a neutral level, we must evaluate the motives of our heart. Are we trying to them equally because we sincerely have a desire to care or because we know we should have a desire to care?

I did not mean to go off on some random rant about this. It was just what was on my heart. But questioning our motives are important I feel like. Our motives heavily reflect the way we live our lives. And often, people do not see if you are sincere or not…so there is no accountability. Let us not live lives were we do the right thing or treat people the right way because we know we should. Let us strive for hearts with pure motives that it naturally flows from us to treat people equally.

Art Mueseum

I went to the Polk Museum of Art for this assignment, and I stayed there for at least 40 minutes.

Last Friday, instead of attending class we took another field trip. I went with Lauren, Juliet and Brendan to the Polk Museum of Art. I absolutely love going to art museums, and I was excited to see what art was displayed here.

The first room we went to showcased a variety of Asian tapestries and art. Kimonos hung from the ceilings and it made me think about to my childhood because I was born and partially raised in Japan. But then I began to wonder how all of this had to do with art. There many rooms that was centered around cultural pottery and such. But art is more than painting, drawings and writings I suppose. Art is an expression of what lays in the artist’s heart. And for many of these artists, through extravagant paints and delicate pottery, they were trying to portray something that meant a lot to them: their culture and diversity. I could definitely appreciate it.

The room I really enjoyed exploring was one that showcased art done by high school students. There paintings, photographs, and even graphic designs that were done by very creative high school students. Lauren, Juliet, Brendan and I stayed in this room for awhile and even revisited it on our way out of the museum. We questioned the artists intentions for their work, though about how they went about making the art, and tried to figure out what things the artists was even trying to hide from us in their works.

One room I enjoyed the most was a room that hide photographs of families around the world and their homes. What was interesting about these paintings was that all their material possessions were setup outside their homes in their yards and streets. It was amazing seeing the great contrast of living styles across the world. And I believe that was the main motive the photographs had for these pictures: it was too enlighten the viewers that there is a world out there bigger than ourselves. It is suppose to inspire us to have an open mind. And ultimately, we are viewers, should look at art all in the same way.

Post 20

The search for an authentic and genuine relationship with God is generally a goal that Christians strive to obtain. However, it is easy to dwell on this goal, say the right words and do the right things and make yourself believe you are living the genuine life God desired for us. But when it comes down to the hard times, the times where we must live in the “darkness;” where no Christian clichés or comforting prayers can fill the void darkness has stolen, would we truly believe that we had an authentic relationship with God?

Professor Corrigan’s article “Darkness, Questions, Poetry, and Spiritual Hope” addressed some interesting points. We as Christians must have an “intimate account of suffering” in order to have true hope with Christ. I feel like we are so accustomed to finding the right words or doing the right things for others or even for ourselves when suffering strikes our lives. But the unique life we have cannot be treated with a blanket. With the different tribulations that come in our lives, it is not always about finding the right things to cover up all the hurt and suffering. We must learn that it is okay to question. It is okay to be uncertain about what you believe, because it is through that uncertainty that our true faith stands.

We do not necessarily need to suffer for Christ. But that does not mean suffering does not happen in our lives. How we endure suffering shows how faithful we are to God’s promises. We face and endure darkness for a reason: “"Unless we face the darkness, we have nothing to offer those who are hurting and we have no resources for ourselves when we get our own turn at pain--except cheap religious clichés." We grow through the hard times. And our sincere nature will show through those time.