In Raymond Carver's short story, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," the characters have a conversation about love. Yet throughout their dialogue, they never come to an understanding of what it really means to love(Carver). .
Terri insists she knows love by telling stories of her ex husband Ed, who used to beat her. Mel seems at one point seems to be on the right track with a story of an old couple but gets lost and never really connects anything up with what love is. Even on the subject day to night, they never really came up with a determination of love. The Narrator and his wife Laura seem to know the most about love. Even though they didn't define love, they seemed to show love by means of affection and physical contact. In his story, Carver relays the message that sometimes, love isn't something that can be easily, or adequately, expressed. .
In "What We Talk about When We Talk about Love," the characters are discussing aspects of love, but never seem to be able to define or explain it; they talk about pain and jealousy, while trying to put love into words. Terri's ex husband Ed was abusive; still she claims he loved her. She even mentions that Ed killed himself he loved her so much. The way Ed acted was a reaction from jealousy and pain combined. He may have abused her because of the lack of love and killed himself from the jealousy of losing her to Mel. Mel brings up a story of an old couple which the old couple seemed to be in love, then mentions that the old man's heart was breaking because he couldn't see her. Mel knew there was an importance to the story but never ties up the loose ends leaving him only talking about the pain caused to the old man. .
Pain and love are both very strong emotions and can sometimes coincide with each other. Their emotions were misunderstood; lack of love can sometimes lead to other feelings like pain and jealousy. Mel and Terri seem to talk a lot about pain.
