I decided to approach this assignment like the same way we approached the poem in class. After reading it the first time I noticed that Mel and Terri are very interesting. I haven’t decided how I feel about them. Their views on love seem distorted. Terri can’t stop talking about how much her abusive ex-husband loved her. He “loved” her so much he was willing to kill for her. Mel talks about his ex-wife and how he knew he once loved her and wondered where that love went. The other couple, Nick and Laura, seems to be peaceful and know what love is and are comfortable where they are. They don’t question what they have and what they had in the past.
The author, Raymond Carver, was an alcoholic and even after he sobered up his marriage was damaged and ended in divorce. He later got married to a different woman. Perhaps this is relevant. Maybe he is like, Terri and Mel, he had a marriage where he thought it was true love and later it was slaughtered and was irreparably damaged. They later go married to a different spouse but couldn’t stop thinking about what happened to ruin what they had.
The second time I read through this story I didn’t get much else. I noticed that the position of the sun was constantly brought up. Mel seems very confused and unhappy about his love in the past and now. He says on page 58 he’ll be glad to tell us what real love is and then later says, “What do any of us really know about love?” He doesn’t even know and I think this may make him angry. He talks about how he wishes he had been a knight because the armor keeps them from getting hurt so easily. He also says if he wasn’t with Terri and if Nick weren’t his best friend he’d be with Laura. Mel’s character bothers me. I haven’t figured out everything about him and what exactly gets me upset, but he doesn’t know what he wants. Perhaps that is where Carver was, lost.
1 comment:
Some students come to class saying, "I don't get it" about the reading. Others, who are more skilled readers, may say, "well, I didn't get ___ (fill in the blank), maybe it's this and maybe its this." What you're doing in this post, it seems to me, is the second kind of thing, where you're actively parsing out the story. So way to go.
(By the way, you've still not turned off the "comment verification." Go under "comments"--one of the tabs within "settings"-- and select "no" for the option "Show word verification for comments?")
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