Whats Love Got To Do With It; Everything! :: essays research papers

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love An excerpt from Readers Digest August, 1997, submitted to Laughter, the Best Medicine, by Adam Christing. A lot of people wonder how you know if you really in love, says comedian Ronnie Shakes. Just ask yourself one question: Would I mind being financially ruined by this person? If you really look at this statement, it is invariably the truth. When it comes to love, money makes no matter, be it past, present or future. Love is love, and nothing can stand in its way. In the following pages I will be discussing Raymond Carvers short story, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. It is a story that explores all types of love, jealous, brutal, physical and spiritual. Written in 1981, it is very contemporary in its style and its meaning can be applied easily to everyday life. Only love that is true in your heart is love, the rest are other emotions sublimated into love. With this in mind, we should look at people around us, people who are in love. Ask to yourself, Why are they in love?   Then, ask yourself, How are they in love? It may be surprising, but the answers to these questions can be surpassingly different. Only when they are the same will the love be true. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, is set in a house somewhere in Albuquerque NM, some time in the afternoon or early evening, and going into night. As previously stated, the story was written in 1981, and it appears to set in the same time. Two couples are sitting around the kitchen table, drinking gin, and talking, talking about love and the many forms it takes. Teresa (Terri) gives a detailed description of a brutal love she had with her ex-boyfriend, and how he beat her. Mel, Terris husband, gives us his feeling for his ex-wife, and how he loves his kids, that she has custody of. Jealousy, is the love he has for her, she has his children, and he wishes her dead, so he could have custody. Finally, the love they all agree as the universally truest love, the spiritual love, is shown by an elderly couple involved in a bad accident. Both of them refuse to die, until they can be assured the other will be all right. In the very beginning of the story, the two couples are sitting around drinking and talking. As their conversation goes on it develops into one of love. This passage marks the first of several types of love, and gives us an intuitive