“WHAT IS IT?

” EXPLORING THE ROLES OF WOMEN THROUGHOUT

RAYMOND CARVER’S SHORT FICTION

A Thesis by

Brian Charles Seemann

MA in English, Wichita State University, 2006

BA in English, Stephen F. Austin State University, 2003

Submitted to the Department of English

and the faculty of the Graduate School of
Wichita State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts.

May 2006
 “WHAT IS IT?” EXPLORING THE ROLES OF WOMEN THROUGHOUT
RAYMOND CARVER’S SHORT FICTION

I have examined the final copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it
be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts with
a major in English.

____________________________________________________
Richard Spilman, Committee Chair

We have read this thesis

and recommend its acceptance:

____________________________________________________
Chris Brooks, Committee Member

____________________________________________________
Ramona Liera-Schwichtenberg, Committee Member

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 DEDICATION

To my mother, father, and brother

For the books, the determination, and the ideas

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 ABSTRACT

A majority of critics examine Raymond Carver’s fiction in terms of minimalism,

but in this thesis, I highlight the themes in Carver’s work rather than emphasize the

format. Many women in Carver’s work contrast the futility of their male counterparts by

showing a determination to move on with their lives. By looking at each of Carver’s

major collections of short stories, one may find a progression in the way women react to

the hopeless situations in their lives. Carver’s early stories, found in Will You Please Be

Quiet, Please?, show women who are capable of handling situations, yet unproductive in

finding true autonomy. Later stories in Cathedral and Where I’m Calling From find

women working with men and eventually finding their own independence--a

characteristic that begins to develop in Carver’s second collection, What We Talk About

When We Talk About Love.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? ……………………………………………………… 3

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love ……………………………………… 14

Cathedral …………………………………………...………………………………...... 28

New Stories, Where I’m Calling From ………………………………………………… 47

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………… 57

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 Although critical consensus generally focuses on Raymond Carver as a minimalist

and concentrates on the form and style of his writing, a particular aspect unrecognized

throughout his work appears in the relationships between men and women. In many of

his stories, Carver presents males and females in conflict with one another, and many of

these encounters result from the general apathy of men. These men retreat inside homes

to find an alternate world in television, alcohol, and violence, and in the process

withdraw from conventional masculine roles. Females emerge as the stronger individuals

in the relationship, often taking on the roles their male counterparts have abandoned.

They have the jobs, they seek progress, and in many cases, they prove to be the stable

character in the story.

Raymond Carver’s short fiction provokes much debate over the style of his prose

and the depiction of individuals who toil in a landscape of destructive behavior,

alcoholism, infidelity, and moral and monetary bankruptcy. Carver presented characters

who fail to acknowledge and understand problems that exist before them, and he often

did so by forgoing customary details that would aid reader’s perceptions. Because of

this, critics have labeled his work as minimalism, and they point to the collection What

We Talk About When We Talk About Love as the preeminent piece of minimalist fiction.

To classify Carver’s work as just minimalism is to fail to acknowledge the work that

followed the minimalist stage of his career. Cathedral and the final stories found in

Where I’m Calling From show that Carver expanded beyond simple minimalist

approaches. These later stories still concentrate on the same category of people, but

rather than simplifying the exhausted despair, Carver turns a glimpse into a portrait to

provide narratives that display the more pronounced resolution absent in earlier works.

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 The evolution of style makes for an interesting task when examining Carver’s

writing. Since each major collection can be singled out as an influential stage in his

career, one must consider each volume of stories as part of an ongoing progression in the

growth of his fiction. The length of stories grows from thin to generous, yet the themes

of ineptitude and hopelessness remain throughout. Characters react to conflict and

despair in an assortment of ways, but one identifiable trait in many stories throughout

each collection is the determination and intuitiveness of women. Many women in these

stories become figures of action because their male counterparts (husbands, ex-husbands,

boyfriends) have grown stagnant and accepted their reduced status. In early stories found

in Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, women recognize predicaments in their

relationship and make an effort to take care of their problems. Later stories show women

progressing beyond simply trying to take care of problems, as women actually seem

capable of discovering moments of autonomy. By Cathedral, women act as guides for

men to realize small moments of possibility. Throughout this development, women adopt

traditional roles once played by men, proving their capacity to take control during

decisive moments in relationships and to strive under strenuous circumstances.

Andrew Fletcher remarks that “Carver’s protagonists are marginal in many

senses” (253). While there are no heroic figures in Carver’s stories, some seek something

beyond mere survival. Women often are these hopeful characters, forced into making

critical decisions because the men in their lives have suffered setbacks that leave them

overwhelmed and enervated. Determination and assertiveness appear in women

throughout each of Carver’s major collections, and in each collection, women take on a

different role to demonstrate these attributes. Where a story in Will You Please Be Quiet,

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Please? features a woman sent by her suicidal husband to sell their sports car to escape

bankruptcy, a story in Cathedral has a woman introducing her blunt husband to a man

who forces the husband to acclimate his behavior and change his perception of life. The

feminine impact evolves throughout Carver’s work, and looking at these women creates a

better awareness of the effect gender has in Carver’s stories.

Carver’s status in American literature comes from the credit he receives for

rejuvenating the short story in the latter part of the twentieth century alongside other

writers admired for their realistic viewpoints and the inclination to capture an arresting

essence of life drawn from classic realism. Other writers--Carver’s close friends Tobias

Wolff and Richard Ford, Ann Beattie, Bobbie Ann Mason, to name just a few--along

with Carver introduced stark representations of ordinary people, and in Carver’s first

major collection, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, he highlights a disharmony between

men and women that many contemporary writers found worthy of attention.

Opportunities are limited for the characters in this collection, and failure causes discord

between men and women. With a title that pleads for silence, and in turn submission, the

collection is comprised of voices longing to be heard, and those voices often belong to

women who attempt to control their lives after men have irrationally left them to take

responsibility.

In their oft-cited critique of the collection and its theme of dissociation, David

Boxer and Cassandra Phillips analyze the separation of self and identity, defining

dissociation as “a sense of disengagement from one’s own identity and life, a state of

standing apart from whatever defines the self, or of being unselfed” (75). For Will You

Please Be Quiet, Please?, and a majority of Carver’s work, dissociation functions to

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separate men from women, as the detachment men experience leads women to seek better

situations. If men were at one point expected to provide for a family and be the main

source of income in a household, these stories refute those ideals by presenting men who

fail at maintaining such appearances. “They’re Not Your Husband” presents a man

between sales jobs, his wife working as a waitress to support them. “Collectors” has a

man out of work, separated from his wife, confronted by a vacuum cleaner salesman

knocking at the front door. “What Is It?” sees a man on the verge of bankruptcy, sending

his wife to sell a car because he cannot face the possibility of living a life void of luxury.

These men, and others in the collection, are displaced from customary environments, and

as Boxer and Phillips note, given “sudden, hideously clear visions of the emptiness of

their lives” (75). This is not to say women do not suffer similar fates. They languish

beside their men; however, in Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? some women tire of

these bleak circumstances, and so they attempt to change their condition.

A prime example of this comes in “What Is It?,” a story filled with typical Carver

characteristics. Leo and Toni have squandered their savings and are days away from

bankruptcy unless they can find a buyer for their sports car. Carver begins the story in

familiar fashion, highlighting only the important details while eschewing unnecessary

background:

Fact is the car needs to be sold in a hurry, and Leo sends Toni out to do it.
Toni is smart and has personality. She used to sell children’s
encyclopedias door to door. She signed him up, even though he didn’t
have kids. Afterward, Leo asked her for a date, and the date lead to this.
(208)

“This” can be interpreted to be several things, including the deal for the sports car, but it

also refers to the turmoil the couple finds themselves in. In a succinct manner, Carver

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outlines the conflict in the relationship before delivering the first signs of marital tension

between Leo and Toni. The two have decided Toni will attempt to sell the car, and as she

dresses, spending ample time on make-up and hair and finding new clothes to wear, Leo

stands to the side, forced to watch her prepare as he stays home. Neither wishes for such

a transaction; both yearn for the good days, where they bought anything they wanted--

cars, records, trips, pets--and felt content. Leo admits that Toni looks attractive in her

clothes and jokes that, given the opportunity, he would buy a car from her. Her reaction

is telling, for it not only reveals the truth, but hints at a deeper issue:

“But you don’t have money,” she says, peering into the mirror. She pats
her hair, frowns. “And your credit’s lousy. You’re nothing,” she says.
“Teasing,” she says and looks at him in the mirror. “Don’t be serious,”
she says. “It has to be done, so I’ll do it. You take it out, you’d be lucky
to get three, four hundred and we both know it.” (209)

Teasing aside, Toni says what they both know is true. Leo is practically worthless, and

furthermore he could not succeed in selling the car, a duty one might conventionally

envision a man taking on. It disillusions Leo to the point that he follows Toni around the

house, gauging her readiness and imploring her to sell the car in a manner he might if

given the chance. Outside, reminded of his past infidelity upon seeing his neighbor

across the street, Leo gets the feeling Toni might do more than just sell the car, and as he

wishes her luck in the driveway, he notices that “she is already gone, already negotiating”

(211). His words and actions do nothing, and as she drives off, he yells promises of

better things to come. Leo can feel a separation developing in the way Toni ignores him

--already planning her proposal to possible buyers--and this is the dissociation Boxer and

Phillips describe: Leo realizes just how idle and useless he has become. Once this begins

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to set in, he returns inside the house, where he does what many Carver men do in order to

avoid the pressures in life. He turns on the television and takes to drinking.

Alcohol is a constant throughout Carver’s work, and just a casual glance at the

majority of his stories will point to the effect it has on many characters and plotlines. A

less talked about malady that figures prominently in several stories is television, which

draws the attention of those craving diversion from their daily lives. Mostly men are the

ones who plant themselves in their living rooms glaring at the television for long periods

of time. After Leo fixes himself a drink, he confines himself to the living room, flipping

channels in desperation, but finding nothing that will take his mind off Toni, who has

gone into a world of communication and fearless individuals to do a job Leo cannot. “He

understands he is willing to be dead,” Carver writes, and with these words, one

understands the extent to which Leo has been emasculated (213). Kirk Nesset

summarizes Leo’s anguish by noting his growing sense of worthlessness combined with

the impending possibility of losing his wife. Nesset writes that “the temporary absence

of his wife, underlining monetary and sexual inadequacies in equivalent terms, is a loss

for him as comprehensive as it is intense; he would rather ‘be dead’ than have to wholly

confront the psychic contours of his bankruptcy” (21). The phone rings and Toni relays

the information that the car is about to be sold, the one hang-up being that Toni’s

excursion into the world of automobile sales includes dinner and drinks with the buyer.

The car, the representation of a once steady lifestyle, is no longer the sole item up for

bidding, and Leo perceives that he may lose more than money. By drifting away in a sea

of booze and false reality, Leo attempts to forget his troubles, but the issues weigh on him

too much, and he waits for Toni, who does not arrive home until the following morning.

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Stumbling into the house, she screams at Leo, who forms a fist but fails to strike her.

Toni’s proof of infidelity sits outside; the buyer has brought her home and dropped off

the makeup purse she forgot at the front door. Leo steps outside to face the buyer, and

with the only words he has left, again reiterates that better times are on the way:

“Monday” (218). The buyer fails to understand, however, and Leo only diminishes

further into irrelevance.

“What Is It?” proves an interesting story because, for the majority of it, Leo is the

central figure. Yet despite the attention given to a man wallowing in angst and suffering

from paralysis in his relationship, the story is a revealing look at the function of women

in early Carver’s stories. Despite the confidence she owns at the onset of the story while

preparing to negotiate, Toni stumbles at the end of the story, her boldness taken over by

reality. Upon returning home to Leo, Toni loses her facade as he peels the clothes from

her body, the hours dedicated to making herself look presentable wasted as she mumbles

and sways through the house, screaming “Bankrupt!” (216). She too feels the wrath of

financial and moral bankruptcy, and worse, she lies naked in bed while her husband runs

his fingers over the stretch marks on her body. The symbolism is rich; the marks indicate

the wear and tear of Toni’s life. When the buyer asked Leo in the driveway if the

odometer reading were actual miles, it was as if he were assessing not only the car but

also the woman.

Seeing Toni in this manner, as if she were a used car sold in order to stay afloat,

hardly seems like an ideal way to consider her a woman of assertive behavior; however,

strong characteristics remain in her personality that suggest a determined and capable

individual. Toni leaves the house, and in Carver’s world, this step is one most privately

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fear. In Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, many characters choose to stay behind the

curtains, as it were, and to peak into the outside world. Such is the issue that Boxer and

Phillips discuss, noting the voyeuristic pleasures many characters cling to. The outside

world can ravage a character; in the title story, Ralph Wyman leaves home only to enter a

world full of brutality, immorality, and drunkenness, and in “Neighbors,” the couple

taking care of the apartment next door all but lose their identity at the doorway of their

neighbor’s apartment. Toni’s journey into the outside world also ends badly, but she

takes the chance to do what she feels necessary. As she prepares to leave the house, she

does so confidently: “‘I know them [the buyers]. But don’t worry, I’ll get out of it,’ she

says. ‘I can handle it’” (209). Her voice exudes assurance, a far cry from the indolence

Leo displays throughout the story. Her willingness to succumb to unfaithfulness also

speaks for her assertiveness, even in its baseness. Such is the rationale for these early

stories. Women give solid evidence of being resolute and insistent in their actions, yet

the conflicts and their consequences still weigh heavily on their lives.

Suffering with loss and fearing the worst, Leo makes for a typical Carver male,

his failure to play the traditional masculine role supplying the gap required for Toni to

seek an experience beyond the household. In her article about contemporary men and

“What Is It?,” Vivian Gornick reflects upon “a certain kind of American

story…characterized by a laconic surface and a tight-lipped speaking voice. The narrator

in this story has been made inarticulate by modern life. Vulnerable to his own loneliness,

he is forced into hard-boiled self-protection” (1). Such a description appears over the

course of many of the stories found in Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, and as these

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qualities are embedded into men, women repeatedly emerge competent in confronting the

malaise.

One of Carver’s strengths includes establishing a trace of uncertainty in his

stories, concealing the pitfalls in relationships while describing the seemingly innocuous

moments that lead to tension. Such an episode evolves in “What’s In Alaska?,” when

two couples experience an evening filled with conversation and marijuana. Carl and

Mary have been invited to Jack and Helen’s house for the evening to celebrate Jack’s

birthday and to test Jack’s new birthday present, a water pipe. Home from work early

and fresh from buying a new pair of shoes, Carl bathes before the party, and Mary enters

the bathroom to announce that an interview earlier in the day might lead to a job in

Alaska. “I’ve always wanted to go to Alaska,” admits Carl, and at the beginning of the

story, Carver provides the framework for a potentially volatile situation: although Carl

indicates an interest in Alaska, Mary offers no encouragement. Once they have arrived at

the party, Mary declares that “Carl’s on a little bummer tonight,” an unprovoked

declaration that sets, for Carl at least, the mood for the remainder of the party (80). Mary

replies: “I was just teasing. I was just teasing, honey” (80). But Mary’s comment

borders on ridicule, and it baffles Carl. This is not to say that women cause, as Gornick

suggests, vulnerability in men, but they certainly intensify it in their speech and activity.

As the evening progresses and the two couples continue to smoke from the water pipe,

Mary shows further signs of moving on. With all four comfortably under the influence of

marijuana, Jack announces that he is going to the kitchen for more snacks:

“I’ll come with you,” Mary said.

Carl watched them walk to the kitchen. He settled back against the
cushion and watched them walk. Then he leaned forward very slowly. He

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 squinted. He saw Jack reach up to a shelf in the cupboard. He saw Mary
move against Jack from behind and put her arm around his waist.
“Are you guys serious?” Helen said.
“Very serious,” Carl said.
“About Alaska,” Helen said.
He stared at her.
“I thought you said something,” Helen said. (85-86)

The scene offers insight into Carl and Mary’s relationship, as Carver simultaneously

offers the potential for unfaithfulness and the hope for unity. Carl, although upset by

Mary’s earlier words, appears content, if a bit naïve, with his relationship, even to the

point of suggesting his seriousness about Mary as she clutches to another man.

Conversely, Mary carries out her own initiative in the other room, her actions a strong

suggestion that she shares very little of what Carl feels and would rather take up with

another man. Like Toni, she is inclined to recognize the lifelessness in her male

counterpart and seek more promising avenues. Unlike Toni, Mary owns a more

promising future. Her job opportunity in Alaska is a possible exit, and considering her

actions with Jack, and her subsequent slip of the tongue in calling him “honey,” Mary

may end up taking Jack with her to Alaska instead of Carl.

Leaving Jack and Helen’s house, the couple strolls home, Carl’s new shoes, damp

from spilled cream soda, serving as an unpleasant reminder of the night, while Mary has

recollections she seems eager to forget: “When we get home, Carl, I want to be fucked,

talked to, diverted. Divert me, Carl. I need to be diverted tonight” (91). As in “What Is

It?,” a moment exists where both male and female appear equally vulnerable, and Mary’s

plea to have Carl take her mind off what has transpired indicates that even though she

appears poised, she is insecure. The final images of the story reinforce much of the early

interactions between Carl and Mary and emphasize the influence Mary has in the

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relationship. Lying in bed, she orders Carl through the house, and once he brings her a

beer and lies beside her, Mary wants him out of bed yet again:

“I forgot to take my pill,” she said.

“What?”
“I forgot to take my pill.”
He got out of bed and brought her the pill. She opened her eyes and he
dropped the pill onto her outstretched tongue. She swallowed some beer
with the pill and he got back in bed.
“Take this. I can’t keep my eyes open,” she said.
He set the can on the floor and then stayed on his side and stared into the
dark hallway. She put her arm over his ribs and her fingers crept across
his chest.
“What’s in Alaska?” she said.
He turned on his stomach and eased all the way to his side of the bed. In
a moment she was snoring. (92-93)

In a story filled with dialogue (several pages are devoted strictly to conversations at Jack

and Helen’s house), the concluding moments offer less dialogue, and in its place, more

nonverbal indicators of a mounting separation between Carl and Mary. Desirous of sex

one minute, Mary changes her mind, and the implication is that Mary just might be

thinking of Alaska and a new life without Carl and the baggage he might provide. Hence,

she asks for her birth control as assurance that she remains protected from possible

pregnancy and a confined life with Carl. When Mary rebuffs Carl’s advance, she is

clearly in control and one day closer to a promising life in Alaska without Carl.

“What Is It?” and “What’s In Alaska?” feature self-doubting and naïve men,

whose only approach to relationship turmoil is withdrawal. The women take inventory of

their lives and appropriate the male role; they go outside and sell the car and they find

promising employment opportunities with the potential for something better. These goals

do not always involve separation; in fact, some stories in Will You Pleas Be Quiet,

Please? present women whose strength materializes in the resolve they keep in the

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company of men. Feminine decisiveness takes on less noticeable forms in these stories,

where the inadequacy and lack of recognition shown by men fortifies the perseverance of

women.

On first glance, a story like “They’re Not Your Husband” would not encourage

the theory that women maintain any semblance of autonomy in their relationships with

men. Cynthia Whitney Hallett comments that the story is one “in which Carver combines

the implication that voyeurism is an inherent element of the human condition with his

persistent theme of marriage as a union always on the verge of collapse or as a feeding

ground where men and women feast on one another’s weaknesses” (56). Earl Ober

certainly feasts upon his wife’s weakness, as he insists she lose weight after seeing two

men ridicule her body at work. His decision surprises Doreen, who complains that her

weight has never been much of an issue, and Earl, whose current unemployment gives

him time to consider such things, suggests that until now, her weight was never been

much of a problem. Carver surveys Earl’s true intentions, hinting that “He tried to pick

his words” (24). For Earl does not wish to be labeled a “joker,” the term the two men at

the diner used to describe any man who would desire Doreen’s figure, and he delicately

persuades her that losing weight would be a good thing. But in his care with words, Earl

not only illustrates the futility of communication Carver highlights throughout the

collection, but he exhibits a lack of self-judgment, as he succumbs to the insults he hears

from the diner patrons. Doreen accepts Earl’s suggestion and begins to lose weight, and

in two weeks, her co-workers take notice of her increasing weight loss and imply she

might be losing too much:

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 “What is wrong with losing?” he said. “Don’t you pay any attention to
them. Tell them to mind their own business. They’re not your husband.
You don’t have to live with them.”
“I have to work with them,” Doreen said.
“That’s right,” Earl said. “But they’re not your husband.” (27)

Earl’s continual reminder to Doreen that he is her husband signals a need for an identity,

as he clings to the only role he seems capable of holding onto. The role is not one he

particularly is well suited for, however, as his thorough watchfulness over Doreen’s

weight and inability to secure a job make for traits undesirable for most men. Likewise,

instead of feasting upon Earl’s weaknesses, Doreen proves to be the stable force in the

relationship, capable of keeping a job and providing the means necessary for the family

to stay afloat. Recognizing strength and influence in her personality becomes a hard task

because in many ways, those traits have long since vanished; almost all of her resilience

has been stunted by Earl’s stubbornness and failure to accept his obligation as a husband

and a man.

“They’re Not Your Husband” reads as a story where Carver puts two individuals

in a dismal situation and wonders if either of them can ever find a way to stumble upon

fulfillment, albeit in its smallest form. Granted neither character seems to have found an

opportunity to get out of their situation, but at the end of the story, Doreen recognizes a

bit of the joker in Earl. After Earl points out Doreen’s figure to a man at the counter,

another waitress asks Doreen if she knows him, if she knows who this joker may be:

Earl put on his best smile. He held it. He held it until he felt his face
pulling out of shape.
But the other waitress just studied him, and Doreen began to shake her
head slowly. The man had put some change inside his cup and stood up,
but he too waited to hear the answer. They all stared at Earl.
“He’s a salesman. He’s my husband,” Doreen said at last, shrugging.
Then she put the unfinished chocolate sundae in front of him and went to
total up his check.” (30)

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Reluctantly, Doreen finally admits that Earl is her husband, but not before expressing her

dismay by shaking her head and first introducing him as a salesman. For in the end, Earl

acts more like a salesman, although a poor one, than a husband, and he exhibits qualities

of desperation not far removed from those shown by Leo. Doreen, though not the

cunning woman Toni and Mary sometimes are, attempts to separate herself from an

oafish character. “They’re Not Your Husband” proves to be an early example of a story

where the woman distinguishes the problems that exist within her relationship and

continues to endure the situation. Latter works intensify the struggle between couples

and explore just how women assert themselves and adopt less traditional household roles.

In “Raymond Carver’s Monologic Imagination,” Miriam Marty Clark reacts to

the voices in Carver’s stories, concluding that a single voice permeates most stories.

“Raymond Carver’s stories make their way toward single voices: the ‘I’ in retreat from

the domestic babel, the ‘he’ or ‘she’ recoiling from a noisy world” (240). Furthermore,

Clark insists that Carver, “in a calculating way,” buries the difference between male and

female voices and believes that “There is, significantly, no discernible difference between

men’s speech and women’s in most series” (241). Although she allows for some

exceptions, Clark believes that a majority of characters in Carver’s fiction have their

voices unified, thereby extinguishing any chance of autonomy. Speech, and the lack of it,

figures prominently in Carver’s second major collection, which, like his previous

collection, evokes a kind of identity in the title. What We Talk About When We Talk

About Love concerns individuals seeking to converse with one another amidst the

limitations that communication causes, and it also presents a group of female characters

who take more assertive stances in their relationships. In an act of defiance toward the

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men in their lives, these women express themselves with strong voices that rise above a

singular voice and in essence deflate the notion that most voices in Carver’s fiction

converge into one. In this collection, the emergence of women contrasts with the futility

of men more prominently that in Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, and while the

disharmony of relationships continues, the consequences for women are not as self-

destructive as in earlier stories.

“A Serious Talk” follows the aimless Burt returning to the scene of yet another

embarrassing moment in his recently solitary life: Burt finds himself at his wife’s house

the day after Christmas, which is also the day after he threw five logs in the fireplace

before storming out of the house. Recounting much of Burt’s previous evening at his

wife’s house, Carver presents Burt as a quintessential male figure in What We Talk About

When We Talk About Love, who unleashes his rage through a string of incidents that

serve only to alienate his family and further separate him from his natural surroundings.

The story focuses on Burt, yet by the end of the story, when Burt leaves the house

without a hint of dignity, one can clearly see that the female has undertaken the

responsibility of keeping the household intact--sans Burt--and attempted to regroup and

form a stable environment for those remaining.

As he pulls into the Vera’s driveway the day after Christmas, Burt spots the pie he

dropped when he angrily left the night before. That night, Burt had come to visit and

share gifts with his family next to the Christmas tree, enjoying the time he was able to

share with Vera and their children. The family exchanged gifts and the children ran

through the house, and Burt reminisced about a time when such happier occasions might

have been the norm in the household. Burt, granted visiting privileges by Vera, had

15
given her a cashmere sweater and insisted she try it on: ‘“It’s nice on you,’ Burt said, and

felt a welling in his chest” (106). His emphasis hints at the affection he still holds for

Vera, yet her lack of response suggests a discontent that explains Burt’s evening. While

Vera appears to have moved on, Burt remains stuck with recollections.

After exchanging presents, Burt soaks in the environment and finds comfort in the

familiarity of what was once his house: “Burt liked it where he was. He liked it in front

of the fireplace, a glass in hand, his house, his home” (106). His recollection of the past

argues for another instance of disassociation in Carver’s males; just as Leo stares at the

empty spot in the driveway where the convertible once sat, Burt sits in a house where he

once felt secure and at home. These men have distanced their former selves from their

present condition, and as a reaction, they turn to violence, not dialogue, and in turn

isolate themselves from family and society. While Leo raises his fist at Toni when she

returns home, Burt drops five wooden logs in the fireplace and leaves the house, six pies

from the kitchen counter in hand. Burt’s anger stems from Vera taking up with a new

man, leaving Burt as the replaceable figure reduced to having his visiting hours stipulated

by Vera. “Vera had warned him beforehand. She’d told him the score. She’d said he

had to be out by six o’clock because her friend and his children were coming over for

dinner” (105). The potential of another man in the house threatens Burt because the new

man is not just coming over for dinner--he is moving into Burt’s role as the male head of

the household. By moving on with her life and finding someone new, Vera emerges as

the determined individual in contrast to Burt, who seems unable to accept the end of his

marriage. Vera has little need for Burt anymore, and her introduction of a new man into

16
the household demonstrates her ability to control the environment, something Burt was

incapable of doing.

Burt and Vera talk, but the conversation features two people moving in different

directions. Burt offers apologies for the previous night, yet he cannot find the words to

explain himself: “There were things he wanted to say, grieving things, consoling things,

things like that” (111). While Burt mulls over his thoughts, Vera busies herself around

the house and prepares for her flute lesson. She also seems prepared to carry on with her

life, minus Burt, who has taken to being a nuisance around her:

“Jesus, Burt. What’d you want to talk about, anyway? I told you I have
someplace to go. I have a flute lesson at one o’clock.”
“Are you still taking flute?”
“I just said so. What is it? Tell me what’s on your mind, and then I
have to get ready.”
“I wanted to say I was sorry.”
She said, “You said that.” (109)

As Clark has noted, Carver’s stories do not contain distinguishable voices, but in this

instance, Vera possesses considerable influence on the conversation. Her voice proves

distinct by her willingness to communicate, as she expresses confusion and a wish to

move forward beyond her life with him. Unquestionably fed up with Burt’s antics, she

presses him to communicate, and all he can offer are words that have already been

spoken, words that have lost their meaning long ago.

As the story draws to a close, Burt remains at the kitchen table inspecting the

ashtray and leftover food from the dinner to which he was not invited. The phone rings,

and with Vera in the other room getting ready for her lesson, Burt answers and speaks to

someone looking for Charlie (presumably Vera’s other man). As he did the previous

night, Burt allows his anger to intensify and he slices the phone cord. Vera, who had

17
taken the call in the other room, returns to the kitchen and, with resounding authority,

commands him to leave. Her conviction firm, she makes the bold step to eliminate him

from her life forever. ‘“Son of a bitch!’ she screamed. She screamed, ‘Out, out, where

you belong!’ She was shaking the phone at him. ‘That’s it! I’m going to get a

restraining order, that’s what I’m going to get!’” (112). Burt responds only by picking up

the ashtray; his words are useless, and as Charles May observes, “talk achieves nothing”

(43). Vera’s words do accomplish something, however, and her admonishment of Burt

attests to the stability she maintains. The marriage has crumbled, and Burt’s outbursts

not only cement the end of his relationship but stress his failures as a man.

Burt believes his outbursts have demonstrated something and thinks things

between Vera and him can improve:

He left through the patio door. He was not certain, but he thought he had
proved something. He hoped he had made something clear. The thing
was, they had to have a serious talk soon. There were things that needed
talking about, important things that had to be discussed. They’d talk
again. Maybe after the holidays were over and things got back to normal.
He’d tell her the goddamn ashtray was a goddamn dish, for example. (113)

He shows no sign that he understands what has transpired, and the fact that he believes he

has achieved something--that the two can get together to talk--only indicates that

comprehension eludes him and that he remains incapable of possessing the basic skills of

human interaction. Meanwhile, Vera perseveres and maintains a lifestyle that affords her

the opportunity to continue without Burt, as a house, a new man, and music lessons will

attest. Her control of the situation and forceful removal of Burt from the house

demonstrate her influence in the relationship and exhibit an authority that begins to

develop in the women found in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

18
 In Echoes of Slammed Doors: Resonant Closure in Raymond Carver’s Fiction,

Jack Bedell and Norman German elaborate on the impact of Carver’s conclusions, noting

how the abbreviated endings sometimes denote more than the story has provided:

“Detachment is, in fact, one of the fictive stances by which Carver achieves his most

startling effects” (87). Bedell and German imply that wherever the endings may occur,

what invariably surfaces are situations of disconnection between individuals, and often

this separation comes between husband and wife. This is evident in “A Serious Talk” as

well as another story of marital disharmony in What We Talk About When We Talk About

Love, “One More Thing,” where L.D. finds himself at the conclusion of the story forced

into leaving his house, helpless in finding words to express himself. The circumstances

in “One More Thing” make for a rather dysfunctional family: Rae, the daughter, has been

absent from school for weeks, while her father, L.D., stays drunk at home most of the

time. L.D.’s wife, Maxine, seems to be the only one who leaves the house, returning

each night from work to witness “another tragedy in a long line of low-rent tragedies”

(156). The tag “low-rent tragedies” sums up much of Carver’s work and provides critics

the opportunity to simplify the work without investigating beyond the obvious themes of

despair and silence. As Michael Vander Weele observes, however, the tragedies extend

beyond these themes and grow from a lack of awareness:

The tragedy of Carver’s “low-rent tragedies” is not, finally, the broken

marriages or drunken violence we meet in his stories, but the characters’
inability to go beyond their puzzlement over the significance of such
events. They have neither the understanding nor the conditions for such
speech. It remains an unrealized desire. (111)

In the case of “A Serious Talk,” Burt overlooks the simplest of details, right down to his

clutching the ashtray as he tries to drive away from Vera, and concentrates on a plan to

19
talk sometime in the future. His plan lacks rationale, much like L.D.’s family situation,

where drunken violence and broken marriages have upset any conventional household

ideals. Upon arriving home from work one night, Maxine again finds L.D. and Rae in an

argument:

He hit the table with the flat of his hand. The ashtray jumped. His glass
fell on its side and rolled off. “You’re crazy, Rae! Do you know that?”
“Shut up!” Maxine said.
She unbuttoned her coat and put her purse down on the counter. She
looked at L.D. and said, “L.D., I’ve had it. So has Rae. So has everyone
who knows you. I’ve been thinking it over. I want you out of here.
Tonight. This minute. Now. Get the hell out of here right now.” (156)

Maxine’s voice bears similarities with Vera’s, as both women take initiative to remedy

the households destroyed by the brutish behavior of their husbands. Once L.D. collects

his things and returns to the living room, he finds Maxine and Rae waiting for him to

leave forever. “‘Go,’ Maxine said. She took Rae’s hand. ‘Haven’t you done enough

damage in his house already? Go on, L.D. Get out of here and leave us in peace’” (159).

Maxine takes a defiant stance against her husband, one that illustrates an authority in the

relationship. Although not in a remarkably better situation, Maxine still clutches to the

possibility of recuperation and hope, things not available with L.D. in the house. As the

story comes to a close, the final scene allows for the contrast between male and female

voices to resurface:

He put his suitcase down and shaving bag on top of the suitcase. He
drew himself up and faced them.
They moved back.
“Watch it, Mom,” Rae said.
“I’m not afraid of him,” Maxine said.
L.D. put the shaving bag under his arm and picked up the suitcase.
He said, “I just want to say one more thing.”
But then he could not think what it could possibly be. (159)

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And so the story ends with a man left only with a suitcase and shaving bag, any remnants

of identity all but gone. Bedell and German believe “L.D. wants to inflict pain with his

final words, but can only offer booming voice and banging fists,” and indeed, his silence

says more about his embattled condition than any words could (88). Like many others in

Carver’s work, silence becomes L.D.’s only form of communication. Contrary to L.D.’s

verbal paralysis, Maxine is undaunted by any possible threats, standing unafraid of her

soon to be ex-husband. Remarking on the conclusions of “A Serious Talk” and “One

More Thing,” William Stull notes that the stories “end not with a bang, but a whimper, a

hasty retreat, a failure to connect” (5). This failure evolves from the incompetence

exhibited by men, an indisposition that compels their female opposite into action. Both

Vera and Maxine desire to rid themselves of their biggest problem--their husbands. By

responding with action to the inactive men in their lives, these women demonstrate an

empowering strength absent in their male counterparts. While Burt and L.D. leave their

comfort zones with pies and suitcases to go into a world of uncertainty and isolation,

Vera and Maxine endure the collapse of their relationships. Their voices resonate with

determination and authority, characteristics that begin to thrive in Carver’s second major

collection.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love brought more attention to

Carver’s work than anything before it, and much was made about the minimalism of the

stories. The pared stories created “a strong, nearly clinical collection of fugue states” that

Donald Newlove branded as “Hopelessville,” a community of oblivious individuals

finding themselves displaced from customary environments and in constant search of

rediscovery (77). “After the Denim” exacts that kind of imagery with its portrayal of a

21
couple seemingly uprooted from their normal evening at bingo. When James and Edith

Packer arrive at the community center for bingo, they find their usual parking spot

already occupied, and once inside, they find a young couple has taken their regular spot

at the table. This absence of familiarity prompts James to concede any possible winnings

for the evening: “I don’t feel lucky tonight” (70). Edith appears less frustrated about the

situation than James and tries to look past the mere inconveniences, yet when she returns

from the bathroom to tell James she has begun spotting again, it ruins his evening.

James’ frustration denotes a problem common with many Carver males: change. When

presented a situation that requires adjustment and understanding, most of Carver’s male

characters cannot grasp that idea. When James assumes his luck has vanished because of

the young couple at his customary spot, he gives in and soon returns home. While Burt

and L.D. resort to thundering voices that fail to accomplish anything, James retreats to an

extra bedroom in the house after Edith falls asleep and picks up his needlework. Like

L.D. with his wife’s eyelash curlers, James takes possession of an item foreign to men,

and proceeds to find solace in something beyond normal rationale. These men harvest

the hopelessness by their unwillingness to take on their problematic issues; while

conversely, the women take action--overlooking the incident at bingo, finding a stable

partner, or evicting the unstable and volatile male.

“Why Don’t You Dance?” provides What We Talk About When We Talk About

Love with an introduction that establishes the hopelessness found throughout the

collection. The unnamed man, whose namelessness speaks to the kind of lonesome

figures dwelling in Carver’s fiction, bears a resemblance to Leo in the way he stares out

the kitchen window at the furniture in his front yard. In fact, as he looks at the furniture

22
that once decorated the inside of his house, the man could easily be Leo desperately

waiting for Toni to return home from another rendezvous with a car buyer. Such

similarity suggests the disassociation and futile nature of many of Carver males,

regardless of what story collection they reside in. A careful reading of the story and the

simple depiction of setting--the “his side, her side” description of the bed, for example--

exposes the loneliness and marital separation that has encumbered the man, although the

narrative never specifies the exact malady troubling him. Instead, the story revolves

around a boy and girl encountering the furniture and offering to buy it. The young couple

plans to furnish an apartment and upon spotting what appears to be a yard sale they begin

to shop, despite the fact that no one else is in the yard. The girl checks the bed, an item

of sexual possibilities, as the boy inspects the television, an object of sterility already

shown in “What Is It?” to be an obstruction for men. The relationship between the two

already seems tense, evident in the boy’s refusal to kiss his girlfriend as they wait:

He lay down on the bed and put the pillow under his head.
“How does it feel?” she said.
“It feels firm,” he said.
She turned on her side and put her hand to his face.
“Kiss me,” she said.
“Let’s get up,” he said.
“Kiss me,” she said.
She closed her eyes. She held him.
He said, “I’ll see if anybody’s home.”
But he just sat up and stayed where he was, making believe he was
watching the television. (5)

The girl displays a liveliness that evades the boy, whose concerns lie in the unfamiliar

location. His apprehensions mirror those of other men bothered by change and

ambiguity, and he finds comfort in the chance to get up from the bed to see if anyone is

home. The girl’s playfulness and desire to be kissed indicates a need for affection that

23
the boyfriend fails to reciprocate. What may seem a simple refusal of public affection

could actually evolve into something more substantial, and the trivial conflict suggests

future ramifications because parallels exist between the young couple and the man whose

lawn they currently inhabit. According to Nesset, the resemblance between the couple

and the man is a strong one:

In the most obvious sense, the boy and girl are symbolic stand-ins for the
couple who bought the bed and shared it before. Less obviously, the
conversation betrays tension in their own relationship, hinting at tensions
which may or may not have precipitated the break up of the older couple--
most visible in the girl’s eager sexual overtures and in the boy’s reluctance
to act in a potentially embarrassing way. The tensions here, filling the
interstices of a conversation they conduct lying down, of all places, on a
bed, are grounded in sexual politics. (38)

Sexual politics sculpt much of the story, as many of the interactions between the girl and

boy revolve around sex, or the possibility of it. Aware that they are alone in the yard, the

girl fancies an idea: ‘“Wouldn’t it be funny if,’ she said and grinned and didn’t finish.

The boy laughed, but for no good reason. For no good reason, he switched the reading

lamp on” (5). Her sexuality contrasts his reserved behavior, and in hesitation, or perhaps

insecurity, he laughs and walks to the porch, which is where he stays until the man

returns from the store with food and alcohol.

The man offers drinks to the couple and fields their offers on the furniture. The

bids consistently undervalue the man’s belongings, and in turn, his worth. Making the

check out to cash and routinely undercutting the prices the man suggests for each item

(an act the girl precipitates), the boy sees the man as no more than a collection of used

furniture--a gesture “equating his host with the monetary worth of his domestic goods,

the accumulated baggage of a life that the man now deems utterly and irreversibly

worthless” (Nesset 39). After settling on prices, the man begins to play music on an old

24
record player and encourages the couple to dance. ‘“I don’t think so,’ the boy said. ‘Go

ahead,’ the man said. ‘It’s my yard. You can if you want to’” (8). Eventually, the boy

dances with this girlfriend, albeit reluctantly and briefly, pleading drunkenness as an

excuse to stop. Again, his reluctance to touch his girlfriend hints at preexisting problems

between the couple, yet his initial refusal to dance is aimed at the man. Perhaps an

attempt to undermine the man’s hospitality, the boy rejects the man’s suggestion to dance

as a way of enforcing a dominate position. This fails, however, once the boy quits

dancing, and the man, by request of the girl, replaces him in the dance. At this point, the

boy is nothing more than an expendable item, and his tenure as boyfriend will most likely

not last as long as the furnishings they purchase.

In Carver’s world, men rarely leave the house, and in “Why Don’t You Dance?”

the house has simply expanded into the front yard, where everything resembles what it

was inside and an extension cord from inside the house connects everything. Watching

the couple interact, the man has the opportunity to relive his own broken relationship, and

when given the chance, he accepts a dance from the girl. Through the dance they share a

conversation ripe with innuendo, and the girl senses something in him: ‘“You must be

desperate or something,’ she said” (9). According to Adam Meyer, “For her part, she

senses his sadness and wants to comfort him. She also seems to realize that, if she and

her beau, represent what he used to be, then he represents what they might become” (88).

At no other point in the story does a character speak so clearly of the situation. Weeks

later the girl still recalls the incident: “Look at this record player. The old guy gave it to

us. And all these crappy records. Will you look at this shit?” (10). Like other Carver

characters, the girl tries to talk of the situation until it becomes understood, yet at one

25
point she can go no further, and “After a time, she quit trying” (10). With that in mind,

Ewing Campbell asserts that Carver allows the girl the opportunity to grasp what the

encounter holds for her future: “He brings the girl to the threshold of understanding that

dreams gone sour often manifest themselves in desperate acts and that this desperate man

must have been in love when he was her age and starting out in a relation like hers” (45).

Campbell describes the girl as “uninstructed,” as though she cannot fathom the

significance of the occasion, but upon closer inspection, the conclusion offers a shift in

point of view; the story no longer centers around the man and his furniture as it did at the

onset, but instead on the girl and her comprehension of the event. “With the shift in

perspective, a final comment provides us with something new: a confirmation of the

man’s worthlessness, now through the eyes of the girl” (Nesset 39). The man is not the

only worthless individual at the conclusion, however. The absence of the boy, and the

girl’s sudden disregard for him, suggest he has been cast aside and deemed irrelevant.

The only character to surface unscathed at the finale is the girl, for she endures the

scattered furniture and drunken dance partners to become consciously aware that

something influential has happened.

In most of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, females affirm their

livelihood as their male counterparts suffer defeat, but like a large part of Carver’s early

work, disaster does not recognize gender. Holly and Duane have the verbal equivalent of

a boxing match the morning Holly discovers Duane’s infidelity in “Gazebo,” and the

couple locks themselves in a second-story motel room in an effort to confront their

dilemma. In the midst of arguing, Holly relates an incident years before, when, on a

drive in the country, the couple had stopped at an old couple’s house for water and seen a

26
gazebo. For Holly, the memory conjures up images of what she thought her life should

have been. “I thought we’d be like that too when we got old enough. Dignified. And in

a place. And people would come to our door” (28). Holly and Duane had seen a

possibility for their future, and it was one that failed to come true; instead of a nice

country home, they welcomed people as managers of a motel. Holly realizes the

despondency that has infiltrated their lives, yet her awareness can do little to improve the

situation. “Thus ‘Gazebo’ sounds the same self-pitying refrain that dominates the entire

collection” (Saltzman 108).

Holly’s acknowledgment of the instability in her life is an undertaking other

women experience throughout Carver’s early volumes of stories. At times, these women

share Holly’s bewilderment, but often this confusion leads to revelation and action, as

Vera and Maxine demonstrate. Women do not fully emerge from the wasteland of

hopelessness. They do begin, however, to respond to the absence of competence in men

by adopting fixed and confident positions in relationships. In “Everything Stuck To

Him,” when the young husband prepares to go hunting while his young daughter suffers

from illness, the wife gives him an ultimatum between family and hunting: “You heard

what I said….If you want a family, you’re going to have to choose” (133). Such words

point to the fortitude and confidence in speech that evolves in women throughout

Carver’s second major collection, and when the husband opts to remain at home, he bases

his decision on the influence of his wife. For it seems she understands the importance of

familial cohesion. This unity, in time, dissolves, as the ending of the story reveals the

couple’s eventual split; however, the togetherness they briefly share, and the breakfast

27
she cooks for him, hints at the kind of positive moment that will flourish in Carver’s next

major selection of stories.

Regarding Carver’s various styles, Meyer compares the shift in Carver’s career to

the shape of an hourglass--“beginning wide, moving through a narrow stage (during his

‘arch-minimalist’ period), and then widening again” (30). What We Talk About When We

Talk About Love further reduced what was found in Will You Please Be Quiet Please?,

but Cathedral widened beyond most everything in Carver’s canon. With the exception of

the title story in Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, Carver’s stories had never been as

long or provided as much insight and background into character’s lives as the ones found

in Cathedral. In addition to the expansion in length, a generally positive outlook, unseen

in Carver’s earlier work, develops in Cathedral. Surveying Carver’s early work, May

insists that the “first two collections can truly be called shocking, for both in their subject

matter and in style, they assault the reader with the violence of their characters and the

reticence of their language” (76). Conversely, Cathedral distances itself from

Hopelessville with characters searching to form connections, albeit minor, with others.

The expansion between What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and Cathedral is

best observed in the changes Carver employed in turning “The Bath” into “A Small,

Good Thing.” Much critical work has explored the alteration of minimalist style into

fuller narrative, and one prominent aspect is the attention given to the baker and the

conclusion of “A Small Good, Thing.” Whereas the ending of “The Bath” seeks

ambiguity in the mysterious phone call placed in reference to the boy in the hospital, “A

Small, Good Thing” allows people to meet and share in their predicaments. As the

parents of the recently deceased young boy confront the baker who had placed several

28
menacing calls concerning Scotty, something happens. The baker relates his struggles to

the parents, who, still suffering their own loss, find a connection in the baker’s story.

With a union formed, the baker feeds the parents bread, for eating is “a small, good

thing.” The image of breaking bread, an obvious Biblical allusion, ties the baker and the

parents together and serves as an optimistic concluding element.

The longer ending of “A Small, Good Thing” denotes a change that occurs

throughout Cathedral. The baker encourages a communion, and throughout the

collection, similar bonds are formed, most of which prosper at the hands of women. No

longer harboring the intent to rid themselves of their incapacitated and silenced opposites,

these women assert their influence to alleviate the problems that have existed in their

relationships for so long. This awareness of crisis and the attempt to resolve it troubles

some critics, who, although they recognize the expansion of the stories, see the shift in

perspective as too great and too idealistic. In his criticism of Cathedral and the new style

of American short stories Carver fostered, Madison Bell remarks that “Carver abuses his

characters, presenting them as utterly unconscious one moment and turning them into

mouthpieces for his own notions the next. The characters come to resemble rats

negotiating a maze that the reader can see and they cannot” (67). Bell applies his premise

to “The Bridle,” one of the weaker moments in Cathedral, its weakness stemming from

the overt use of the bridle as a metaphor to illustrate the restraint forced upon two

families occupying a rundown hotel (Carver employs symbolism effectively elsewhere in

the collection). Bell’s theory suggests Carver’s characters lack the capacity for speech

necessary to arrive at conclusions, and that Carver seemingly enters the text to solve

dilemmas the characters cannot. Closer readings will show, however, that moments

29
exist where characters possess the power to arrive at conclusions with the assistance of

others. In these cases, women are the conduits that transform the inexpressible into

coherency and optimism.

One of Cathedral’s highlights, “Where I’m Calling From,” centers on two

stereotypical Carver men passing their time at a “drying-out facility;” their years of

drinking and recklessness a prelude to the long days spent sharing stories on the front

porch of the clinic. The unnamed narrator has treaded this path before--he is here for the

second time--but J.P. has only just arrived, and after three days, he already has begun to

shake. “I tell him I sympathize,” the narrator says. “I tell him the shakes will idle down.

And they will. But it takes time” (127). The sparseness in voice is recognizably Carver-

esque and it stays that way throughout the story; this narrator is more willing to listen

than to speak and in J.P., he has found someone eager to talk. While J.P. tells a story

about his experience trapped in a well, the narrator urges him to continue: “Keep talking,

J.P. Then what?” (130). The experience at the bottom of the well leads to a new

perspective in viewing life--“everything about his life was different for him at the bottom

of that well” (130)--and from that anecdote J.P. moves to his first meeting with Roxy, a

chimney sweep. Instantly, he fell in love and after dating, he and Roxy married and

embarked on what was to be a happy life together. But for Carver’s characters, happiness

is only temporary, and soon J.P.’s casual drinking turns chronic, leading to the kind of

abuse in the relationship common in earlier Carver works. The retelling of these events

draws the narrator closer to J.P., and at every pause, another plea to continue comes from

the narrator:

J.P. quits talking. He just clams up. What’s going on? I’m listening. It’s
helping me relax, for one thing. It’s taking me away from my own

30
 situation. After a minute, I say, “What the hell? Go on, J.P.” He’s
pulling his chin. But pretty soon he starts talking again. (134)

A level of comfort begins to settle for the narrator as he has found an ally, someone who

can share common experiences and take his mind away from the problems outside the

facility. Days before he arrived at Frank Martin’s drying-out facility, the narrator’s

girlfriend received her Pap smear results, and the prognosis was not good.

This communication with someone else acts to soothe the narrator’s worries, but

the arrival of Roxy days after the New Year begins serves as a true act of catharsis for the

narrator. Subscribing to the idea that chimney sweeps bring luck with a kiss (a belief J.P.

relays in his story), the narrator requests Roxy to bring him some luck: “‘I need some

luck,’ I say. ‘No kidding. I could do with a kiss myself’” (143). No longer a chimney

sweep, Roxy still consents: “She’s looking right in my eyes. ‘Good luck,’ she says, and

then she lets go of me” (144). The kiss does something to the narrator, for after the kiss

he thinks back to his first marriage and a morning when he awoke to the sounds of

something outside the window. Upon inspection, the noise is coming from the landlord

painting outside the bedroom. As the narrator peeks out the window at the old man,

something happens inside him: “Goddamn it, I think, if he isn’t a weird old fellow. And

a wave of happiness comes over me that I’m not him--that I’m me and that I’m inside this

bedroom with my wife” (145). Roxy’s visit and kiss prompt the narrator to recall a

relatively stable and happy moment in his life, a type of memory he has been unable to

invoke throughout the story. “Roxy’s kiss marks a turning point, as if by asking for the

kiss of luck he [the narrator] is acknowledging his condition and is willing to change it”

(Campbell 69). The final image of the narrator’s recollection is of the landlord picking

up his bucket and climbing the ladder, and as the story closes, the narrator initiates his

31
own ascension, as he makes plans to call his girlfriend and ex-wife. He understands that

he will be forced to tell his ex-wife where he is calling from, but he accepts that and a

transformation at least becomes a viable option for this once despondent man.

“Where I’m Calling From” is one of many stories from Cathedral that helps

“create the book’s overall feeling of generosity,” and in that story it can be attributed to

the role of Roxy (Campbell 70). Roxy, and other woman throughout Cathedral, pacify

men’s predicaments, and as Nesset proposes, “Roxy’s kiss underscores the degree to

which women provide him much-needed security” (60). The narrator recounts the story

sitting on the porch, a location firmly between the outside world in front of him and the

world of Frank Martin’s treatment center behind him; the appearance of Roxy, someone

from the outside world, and the luck that she provides, serves as confidence for the

narrator and inspires the possibility of change. Speaking of the distinguishing traits of

Cathedral, Campbell writes that “Characters possess more positive qualities,” and for

Roxy, her positive influence and ability to draw the narrator’s mind back to happier times

illustrate the optimism women can give men (70). Her entry into the narrator’s situation

and his insistence that she can help, not Carver’s authorial interventions, as Bell would

suggest, brings resolution to the story.

Carver obviously saw significant growth in “Where I’m Calling From,” as he

would later use its title to name his career-spanning collection. The decision to highlight

that story testifies to the importance Carver placed on the type of stories he was writing

later in his career. While his first two collections either pleaded for silence or sensed the

unsuccessfulness of talk, Cathedral pointed to a place, where from desperation, violence,

and confusion, unity could emerge. “Fever,” which appeared in both Cathedral and

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Where I’m Calling From, introduces a form of unity between a pair of unlikely

individuals, its origin stemming from a woman miles away from the action and a woman

willing to sit and pay attention.

“Carlyle was in a spot,” begins “Fever,” and indeed, Carlyle finds himself in a

tight spot as the school year begins and he is without a sitter for his two children (157).

His wife, Eileen, left only months earlier and the first sitter he hires, a nineteen-year-old

girl, turns into a disaster when Carlyle returns home to find her and three boys drinking

beer and listening to records, the children unsupervised. His girlfriend, Carol,

sympathizes with him. That night, she offers to come over to his house, yet Carlyle

declines: “‘Thanks for being there when I need you,’ he said. ‘You’re one in a million,

you know’” (161). After hanging up, though, he holds doubts about the words he used

with Carol. “He wished he could have thought of something else to say to her instead of

what he’d just said. He’d never talked that way before in his life” (161). His recent

experiences have caused enough insecurity to where he questions his own words. Citing

this moment, Charles May argues that “Fever” is a prime example of the breakdown of

talk, claiming the story to be “one of Carver’s most explicit treatments of the inadequacy

of talk” (44). Certainly, Carlyle suffers the same kind of fate as other males in Carver’s

work, as circumstances constantly put him at odds with daily life. The scrutiny of his

own words signifies the loss of self-confidence and poise, and when Eileen calls that

evening, he once again doubts his choice of words: “‘I was just thinking about you,’

Carlyle said, and at once regretted saying it” (167).

Eileen’s call represents an interesting moment in “Fever” because in past

conversations with Carlyle, her intentions always seem selfish and distant, her words

33
estranged and foreign to him. Even though she inquires about Carlyle and the children,

she speaks of the wonders she experiences in California and promises to look into

Carlyle’s karma. This mystical nonsense only draws Carlyle further away, so he excuses

himself and hangs up the phone. When Eileen calls that evening, though, she intends to

solve Carlyle’s problems rather than intensify them:

The big reason I called is that I know things are in kind of a mess out there
right now. Don’t ask me how, but I know. I’m sorry, Carlyle. But here’s
the thing. You’re still in need of a good housekeeper, right? Well, she’s
practically right there in the neighborhood. (166)

An option has been provided, and a possibility for better times seems promising.

Although Carlyle remains skeptical, he soon finds a blessing in Eileen’s suggestion. Mrs.

Webster calls Carlyle an hour later, and when prompted, she insists that she is the proper

individual for the job. “‘I’d like to be able to count on you,’ Carlyle said. ‘You can

count on me,’ she said” (169). Mrs. Webster provides a soothing effect on Carlyle almost

immediately, and his pressing concerns about his children seem to vanish at the sight of

her the next morning when she reports to work. “I feel, I really feel a hundred percent

better” (171), he observes, and the sentiment extends for several weeks, as Carlyle’s life

regroups due to the security Mrs. Webster gives him.

During this phase of renewal, Carlyle falls ill, and the fever causes him to remain

in bed. He tells Mrs. Webster that he plans to stay home that morning and soon falls back

asleep. Occasionally Mrs. Webster enters his room to check on him, bringing him juice

and food and covering him with blankets. By the afternoon Carlyle awakes, and walking

into the living room, he answers the phone. Eileen is on the line; she senses his illness

and encourages him to keep a journal as a way of keeping his thoughts of the period. He

hangs up the phone, and as he reaches for his forehead, Mrs. Webster asks if everything

34
is all right. For even though she takes care of Carlyle, Mrs. Webster must take care of

herself, and she alerts him that Mr. Webster and she will be moving on to live with her

stepson. This news, coupled with Eileen’s recent phone call, leaves Carlyle silent for a

moment, and as he laughs about the preposterous idea of keeping a journal, tears form in

his eyes. Again, Carlyle has found himself in a spot; his recent highs suddenly diminish

as Mrs. Webster and the refuge she offered, prepare to depart. Carlyle, stricken with loss,

feels a need to converse: “Carlyle was afraid she’d move into the other room and leave

him alone. He wanted to talk to her” (184). And so he begins to talk, and what follows is

an outpouring of emotion about the issues that have long troubled him. Mrs. Webster not

only listens, but guides him through his confessions, prompting him to continue speaking

as if she knows the power of what words can realize:

“Go on,” Mrs. Webster said. “I know what you’re saying. You just
keep talking, Mr. Carlyle. Sometimes it’s good to talk about it.
Sometimes it has to be talked about. Besides, I want to hear it. And
you’re going to feel better afterwards. Something just like it happened to
me once, something like what you’re describing. Love. That’s what it is.”
(185)

Her words convey the possibility of unity between two people, prompting Carlyle to

convert his suppressed feelings into actual communication. “Keep talking,” she pleads,

and for the first time, he feels able to converse about the difficulties he has experienced in

the past few months. The action somewhat defies May’s claim that “Fever” exemplifies

the failure of talk, for even though preceding incidents illustrate the failure to choose the

appropriate words, they never fully show an inadequacy in talk. No violence or

screaming exists between these two people, but rather a supportive ear willing to listen to

the abandoned man talk out the story of his marriage and its end. Piotr Dziedzic believes

that with “her straightforwardness, honesty, and precision, Mrs. Webster is the antithesis

35
of carelessness,” and by convincing Carlyle to speak, she allows him the chance to

restore what has been lost. “Talking, she knows, has a therapeutic effect, albeit even a

very long and complicated story of personal failure and unhappiness can be made more

manageable by being reduced to its deep structure of eternal human woe” (Dziedzic 58-

59). As Dziedzic explains, Mrs. Webster has drawn out the painful experiences from

Carlyle, and as she leaves that afternoon, he feels different. Something has ended, and he

realizes that his relationship with Eileen has finally been put to rest, all thanks to Mrs.

Webster. Like Roxy, Mrs. Webster affords a man the chance to comprehend his potential

to accomplish what once seemed unreasonable. The narrator of “Where I’m Calling

From” and Carlyle, both immobilized and, for the most part, acceptant of their decline,

have the second chance the men of previous collections were never presented with, and

these opportunities are created with the help of women.

Roxy and Mrs. Webster enable recovery in men, and these men permit them to

enter into their lives to relieve their apprehensions. Such is not always the case, however,

as “Preservations” introduces a couple that seems unwilling to work together. This

derives not so much from Sandy, but from the reluctance of her husband. “Preservation”

does not present a situation like “Where I’m Calling From” or “Fever” where the man is

willing to change, but instead shows a woman fully capable of allowing for change, even

when her husband refuses to do so. Transcendence fails to emerge in Sandy’s husband

not because she is incapable of motivating change, but because her husband rejects the

idea. Marshall Bruce Gentry, in his study of women’s voices in Carver’s work, suggests

that this kind of inactivity stems from a pattern he sees occurring in many of Carver’s

stories:

36
 In general, Carver reverses the traditional associations of men with
consciousness and common sense and of women with complex emotion
and the mysterious truths of the unconscious. His female characters tend
to experience an initiation into mystery through the catalytic behavior of
men. (87)

Gentry believes a story like “Preservation” portrays a “female perspective [which] is

reflected occasionally rather than constantly” (92). Yet what Gentry seems to overlook is

that, even though Sandy is drawn in by her husband’s inadequacy, her will and

determination are the underlying aspects of the story. The story begins with Sandy’s

husband returning home from work where he has just been laid off: “I got canned today.

Hey, what do you think’s going to happen to us now?” (35). That was three months

prior to the story’s present, at a time when Sandy’s husband still applied the term “us” as

a sign of solidarity, as if the two were in it together, job or no job. Since then, Sandy’s

husband--his namelessness again speaking to the inadequacy and isolation felt in many of

Carver’s males--has occupied the couch in front of the television on a daily basis from

the time Sandy leaves for work in the morning until she returns in the afternoon. “Once

in a while he had to go talk to somebody about a job possibility, and every two weeks he

had to go sign something to collect his unemployment compensation. But the rest of the

time he stayed on the sofa. It’s like he lives there, Sandy thought” (36). Sandy leaves the

house every day, supporting the two of them while also trying to maintain a stable life,

which leads her to confide to a co-worker about her husband’s condition. After hearing

an account from a co-worker about an uncle who cried daily and spent all of his time in

bed, Sandy refrains from approaching the topic again with anyone, mostly from the fear

that the stories she hears will ultimately be the story of her husband. While her husband

leaves the house irregularly with only utilitarian purposes in mind, Sandy ventures into

37
the outside world to communicate, understand, and survive. Her perspective, framed by

determination, supports both her and her husband. She is the one concerned with

preservation, and therefore, her viewpoint serves as the central focus of the story.

The idleness around the house finally comes to a stop one afternoon when Sandy

arrives home from work to find the refrigerator has stopped working and the food inside

the freezer has begun to thaw. While she takes the necessary steps to begin preservation,

her husband, awakened by her scream, rises from the couch and comes to the kitchen to

survey, in disbelief, the disaster. The moment demands immediate attention--the food

needs preserving, as does the marriage--and thus, the title of the story functions as a sign

of impending action. Sandy’s urge to take care of the problem alludes to possibilities

further down the line. Her marriage in shambles, she demonstrates the capability to

enforce action, and such proficiency suggests that she can now sever ties with her

husband. Her activeness, and his lack of it (he soon returns to the couch), epitomizes her

primary role in the story; therefore, the female perspective, which Gentry considers an

infrequent aspect of the story, surfaces as a force that actually propels the story.

Once Sandy’s husband proves unable to fix the refrigerator, Sandy searches the

newspaper and finds an announcement for an auction that evening. She insists they

attend, adamant that a new refrigerator is necessary and that the auction could be

enjoyable for him. “‘Come on,’ Sandy said. ‘What’s the matter with you? They’re fun.

I haven’t been to one in years, not since I was a kid’” (43). Her plea serves as a last ditch

effort to get him out of the house, to somehow break his lifelessness. Meyer notes that

Sandy, who is the central consciousness and true protagonist of the story,
has difficulty dealing with her husband’s inactivity. She wants to break
him of his lethargy, and the opportunity seems to present itself when the
refrigerator stops working. Just as all of the food in the freezer has

38
 thawed, so does the need to buy a new refrigerator begin to draw the
husband out of his frozen shell. (130)

Yet the husband’s response is to retreat to the living room and the television, sterile in his

ability to join in, let alone initiate, serious action. Meyer’s argument concerning Sandy

as the central consciousness of the story would seem to dispute Gentry’s feeling that her

perspective is only an occasional aspect of the story, and it points to the effort she makes

to bring forth change in her husband. In this respect, she resembles Roxy and Mrs.

Webster in the way these women attempt to draw men out of seclusion. As the story

ends, Sandy has salvaged most of the food and she calls her husband into the kitchen to

eat, and when he enters the room, he stops to look at the floor. She tells him to sit, yet he

cannot; he looks at the floor and then turns around to return to the living room where the

couch and the television await. The scene offers a final moment of listlessness, as

Sandy’s husband withdraws back into his own safety instead of stepping into the pool of

water that has collected from the thawing items on the kitchen table. His refusal to get

his feet wet, literally, and accompany his wife to the auction illustrates a type of

hopelessness prominent in earlier Carver stories. The difference, here, is the function of

the woman, as Sandy willingly strives to change the situation and bring her husband out

of his apathetic condition. The failure to do so rests not in her endeavors, but rather on

her husband, who prefers to do nothing.

In “Being Lonely- Dimensions of the Short Story,” Reamy Jansen claims that

“Carver’s essential theme is [the] male struggle to maintain love and wholeness of union

against forces that veer toward disaster and dissolution” (395). Comparatively, women

share in these struggles in a variety of fashions, and as Carver progressed to fuller

narratives later in his career, these methods involved a more assertive and positive

39
approach. And so, when Inez visits her estranged husband’s apartment in “Careful” and

finds his hearing impaired by a stopped up ear, she makes an effort to solve the problem.

Even though Lloyd’s alcoholism, a cause of the couple’s separation, has to be taken care

of (he hides champagne bottles in the bathroom), the story ends with Lloyd having one

less ailment. Struggles continue, yet the woman has enforced a moment of precision.

Inez has shown how careful she can be with Lloyd’s life, though other choices are left to

be made. A choice remains also at the end of the collection’s title story, where a man has

undergone a change of perception, seemingly for the better. One of Carver’s most

illustrious pieces, “Cathedral” points to the kind of connections humans can eventually

discover given the proper circumstances and frame of mind. The story shows a man

willing to open his eyes and self to new experiences, as well as a story that displays the

influence of women in a subtle manner that allows men the chance to detect previously

suppressed emotions.

“Cathedral” introduces yet another stereotypical Carver male who prefers the

reassurances and safety of the home. He stays up late, drinks, smokes marijuana, and

watches television from the comfort of his living room. When his wife tells him about

Robert, a blind friend coming to visit, he scoffs at the bond the two seem to have made,

ridiculing the poetry she has written about her experiences with the blind, even while

admitting to not understanding or frequently reading it. As the story begins, the husband,

yet again unnamed, narrates his feelings concerning the upcoming visit from Robert. His

lack of enthusiasm and downright disgust for this man who seems to possess an

enigmatic relationship with his wife, lead him to poke at what he does not understand.

The blindness bothers him, and he searches for ways to separate himself from the

40
situation while talking to his wife: “Maybe I can take him bowling,” he says, drawing ire

from his wife, who, although frustrated with her husband, probably is all too familiar

with his insensitivity (212). Chris Bullock, who examines “Cathedral” and the use of

architecture in the story as a way of showing a metaphorical construction of the

masculine identity, examines the narrator’s lack of solid relationships with others as well

as his wife, and concludes that these absences negatively affect his marriage. “The

narrator’s lack of relationship extends to the relationship with his wife, as is evident not

only in their sparring in the narrative present, but also in the remoteness of perspective as

he tells the story of her attempted suicide a few years before” (344). Bullock refers to an

incident before the narrator and his current wife were married, at a time when the wife

was married to her childhood sweetheart and following her officer-husband around the

country to live at various Air Force bases. The wife, at the time feeling lonely and

isolated, swallowed all the pills in the medicine cabinet and polished them off with a

bottle of gin. The husband relays:

But instead of dying, she got sick. She threw up. Her officer--why should
he have a name? he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he
want--came home from somewhere, found her, and called the ambulance.
In time, she put it all on a tape and sent the tape to the blind man. Over
the years, she put all kinds of stuff on tapes and sent the tapes off lickety-
split. Next to writing a poem every year, I think it was her chief means of
recreation. (211)

The husband reveals little emotional connection to what has taken place in his wife’s

past, evident in his matter-of-fact, even sarcastic, retelling of the events that caused his

wife to look for solace in poetry. To him, poetry is recreation, on a par perhaps with

smoking marijuana and watching television, but the poetry is more than that for the wife.

Left in a suspended state where her husband ignores much of what she does, the wife

41
finds poetry an outlet to express herself, and indeed, her growth and development as an

individual rests in her writing. As Bullock remarks, the husband’s recounting of his

wife’s attempted suicide is an “account written without relationship and without feeling,

an account that dismisses poetry--a form of writing likely to contain feeling--as a trivial

feminine recreation” (345). The poetry has helped the wife through previous troubles,

and at the time “Cathedral” occurs, the wife is capable of continuing longstanding

relationships and competent enough to call attention to her husband’s insecurities and

complete lack of solid friendships.

Upon Robert’s arrival, the husband continues to brandish his unflattering attitude

and language, asking Robert which side of the train he sat on, as if a blind man could

elaborate on the scenery from either side of the aisle. Robert remains patient, however,

and his laidback nature is the first of many attributes to surprise the husband, who

undoubtedly has expectations as to how a blind man should act and talk. Robert makes

an effort to better acquaint himself with the husband, calling him Bub, a name which at

first the husband detests. He also has a beard, and he smokes--two things that challenge

the husband’s perceptions of what the blind are like. “I thought I knew that much and

that much only about blind people,” he says. “But this blind man smoked his cigarette

down to the nubbin and then lit another one” (217). His views challenged by the intruder,

the husband grows weary of Robert’s presence and affable manner during the course of

dinner and the conversation between Robert and his wife after dinner in the living room.

The husband listens desperately for his name to surface, wanting to be injected into the

dialogue between the two old friends. “I waited in vein to hear my name on my wife’s

sweet lips: ‘And then my dear husband came into my life’--something like that. But I

42
heard nothing of the sort. More talk of Robert” (218). What takes place in front of the

husband is a loss of control from all things he is accustomed to having power over. His

living room no longer represents a tiny sanctuary nor is his wife simply a writer of

poetry. She actively engages herself in conversation that revolves around her and her

experiences, never once suggesting the importance of her husband, who now appears

unnecessary and trivial. It would seem as if the husband has been displaced,

disassociated as Boxer and Philips would declare, from his normal habitat. Excluded

from his customary environment, he feels alienated, yet he creates this dilemma with his

impudence and coarse behavior.

As a part of “From Castle to Cathedral: The Architecture of Masculinity in

Raymond Carver’s ‘Cathedral,’” Bullock utilizes Antony Easthope’s analysis of

masculinity and the house, suggesting that men in Western cultures over the past few

centuries have gradually built a connection between their identities and their living

spaces. In “Cathedral,” the narrator feels his space and comfort have become violated by

the arrival of another man, a blind man no less, introduced by his own wife. After the

three eat dinner, they retire to the living room where the wife aims to keep Robert

comfortable. Her attention to his comfort comes from politeness, yet the threat to the

husband’s space cannot be overlooked. “I want you to feel comfortable in this house,”

she tells him before leaving the room to change into her robe, her frankness surfacing in

the way she adopts the role of hostess while her husband aimlessly sits to the side (219).

After all, the house belongs as much to the husband as it does the wife, and any threat the

husband feels can be attributed to his failure to recognize the union of his marriage.

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 As the wife leaves the room, two men remain--two men who might never interact

if it were not for an intervening third party. The wife draws these two individuals to the

same room, but her absence allows these two men, one physically blind, the other blind to

the problems that persist in his life and relationships, to converse and somehow come to

an understanding of one another. For once, the husband admits to enjoying the company

the blind man provides, as the conversation they share trumps the lonely nights watching

television and smoking marijuana. As the two sit in the living room, the television

playing a program on cathedrals, the husband realizes the blind man has no reference as

to what a cathedral looks like. The husband tries relating what flashes on the screen with

no avail, demonstrating the lack of communication that generally brought earlier Carver

stories to an indecisive closure. Whereas previous stories might have ended with two

characters failing to communicate, “Cathedral” has characters who soldier on, and Robert

encourages the husband to initiate all of his senses, asking him to guide his hands over a

shopping bag in the outline of a cathedral. What follows remains one of Carver’s most

tangible examples of connection, as each man succeeds in discovering something about

the world around them, and themselves, that before had gone unrevealed. Bullock’s

concludes his essay by noting the significance of the connection made between the two

men and their bond over the construction of a cathedral, claiming, “Carver’s point seems

to be that what is built can be differently built, however constrained the conditions. Thus

‘Cathedral’ offers an encouraging lesson for modern men struggling themselves with the

architecture of masculinity” (350). The men detect the numerous ways of finding a

connection, and in a haphazard way, they find through the drawing of a cathedral their

senses are stimulated like never before.

44
 The conclusion of “Cathedral,” filled with an optimism reserved for the latter

works in Carver’s canon, leaves the husband with a prospect of hope that before was

nonexistent. Once isolated, he experiences the touch of possibility as he closes his eyes

and allows his senses to awaken as he guides Robert’s hand across the paper sack;

however, another moment during this final scene plays a significant role in the story.

Earlier, the wife returns from upstairs as Robert and the husband share a joint, and when

she reappears in the living room, she takes a place between the two men on the couch.

She soon falls asleep, but eventually wakes to see the two men drawing on the floor. She

wants to know what the two are doing, and when asked, the husband does not respond,

and Robert’s reply turns quickly from an answer to more encouragement for the husband,

who narrates:

The blind man said, “We’re drawing a cathedral. Me and him are
working on it. Press hard,” he said to me. “That’s right. That’s good, he
said. “Sure. You got it, bub. I can tell. You didn’t think you could. But
you can, can’t you? You’re cooking with gas now. You know what I’m
saying? We’re going to really have us something here in a minute. How’s
the old arm? he said. “Put some people in there now. What’s a cathedral
without people?” (227)

It develops into one of Carver’s most magnificent scenes, one that centers on two men

learning, as Bullock would note, about how understanding can be built in an assortment

of methods. The interaction is a rare moment in Carver’s work, where men can come to

an understanding of each other and themselves. So rare is it that the wife grows

concerned, and she asks, “What’s going on? (228). For once, the woman is no longer the

individual who initiates the crucial element of change, and the ending shows two men

taking the initiative. The final line of the story has the husband considering Robert’s

question of what he thinks of the drawing. Without opening his eyes, the husband says,

45
“It’s really something,” and for once, he speaks without the disillusionment that peppered

his speech for most of the story (228). He has turned the corner with the assistance of

Robert, the outsider introduced into the household by the wife. The wife, who in the end

becomes the outsider, establishes her place and influence by bringing Robert to the house

and her absence, which allows the two men the chance to form a bond. Certainly, the

impact Robert has on the husband is a vital aspect to the story, yet by introducing him as

the element that eventually brings forth the change in her husband, as well as by exiting

the scene to allow the two men to connect, the wife plays a subtle role in the story, one

most often overlooked. Critics rightfully examine the newfound relationship between

Robert and the husband as the principal event of “Cathedral,” yet the wife’s role in

helping the scene unfold cannot be forgotten. At the end, the wife’s words act as a

confirmation of the things she no longer understands, and a transformation of sorts

occurs, as the men become the ones capable of understanding through their

communication. As Michael Vander Weele remarks, “Most of the communication in this

story comes through shared non-verbal work, as expression that stops short of the effort

and commonality of speech” (120). Vander Weele’s examination of the story and its use

of language and communication fails to consider the wife’s function in the story, but his

belief that much of the story relies on non-verbal interaction due to the lack of actual

speech stresses the significance of the wife--she verbalizes, she questions, and she draws

two men closer together.

“Cathedral” became Carver’s cornerstone story because it provided the most lucid

example of people building something out of the strained ties of desperation and silence.

As repulsive and stubborn as the husband is for a majority of the story, the ending

46
illustrates how change can overcome an individual in a positive manner. The

conventional Carver male, once relegated to alienation and misery, now has the

possibility of experiencing something different. While women were once the sole

believers in optimism and determination, in Cathedral, these traits begin to extend to men

as well, prompting a revitalization. Considering Cathedral and the stories that would

follow it, Jansen believes that “Carver’s men and women, especially the men, have

changed significantly and generally for the better. There is a reorienting of his

characters’ lives” (397). This perception defines Cathedral, as the stories feature

individuals pushing toward understanding and tolerance. When Roxy, Mrs. Webster, and

Inez reach out to men, or when the wife in “Cathedral” and Sandy attempt to implement

change, these women are allowing men the chance to advance out of a passive condition

and into a world of communication and opportunity.

Through Carver’s three main collections, an evolution in the relationship between

men and women serves to identify the roles of each gender and the influence each had on

the other. Women maintain a willingness to accept change, although at times, this

openness proves to be destructive as well as encouraging. Early stories examine the

futility both genders experience, yet women often endure the brunt of despondency

forced onto them by men. As Carver’s work progressed in styles and character growth,

women took a variety of stances against the indolence and hostility of men, and by later

stories, their determination and assertiveness had matured into acceptance and

understanding, creating a general feeling of hopefulness.

Cathedral marked a shift in Carver’s work just like What We Talk About When

We Talk About Love had marked a shift, and the final stories found in Where I’m Calling

47
From would build upon previous stories just as the stories of Cathedral built upon their

predecessors. Collected and titled New Stories and appearing at the end of Where I’m

Calling From, Carver’s final seven stories to be published before his death show not only

traces of earlier work, but strands of ideas that pointed to new directions in his work.

“Errand” shows Carver using historical biography to create a fictional retelling of the

death of his literary icon, Anton Chekhov, while “Blackbird Pie” shows a use of imagery

and voice unseen in previous works--conventions that lead Mark Facknitz to apply the

term “antiminimalist” to the work (68). Scenarios and characters are, for the most part,

distinctly Carver-esque, and the final stories show that the relationships between men and

women still focus on how women affect men. These stories present women who seek

independence by suggesting they have no need for the men who have troubled their lives.

While mirroring the discord of earlier Carver stories, the last stories also illustrate women

moving forward without any regard to men stuck in their insecurities.

“Intimacy” begins with the narrator paying a visit to his ex-wife’s house, their

marriage long ago fallen to pieces. His arrival is a reversal of sorts, as men in past stories

would rather stay in a house than return to one. His visit does not give the reader a strong

impression of him because even though his writing career might suggest some success,

his remarks in the opening paragraph prove he still wishes for his ex-wife’s approval:

We haven’t seen each other in four years. But from time to time, when
something of mine appeared, or was written about me in the magazines or
papers--a profile or an interview--I sent her these things. I don’t know
what I had in mind except I thought she might be interested. In any case,
she never responded. (444)

Despite the acclaim he receives, the narrator still seems to need attention from his ex-

wife, and her refusal to reply indicates that she has moved on and no longer holds any

48
interest in the achievements of her ex-husband. This lack of consideration inspires the

narrator to pay her a visit, and once he is inside the home, his ex-wife begins to admonish

him for his past transgressions. He writes, “She says I’ve caused her anguish, made her

feel exposed and humiliated. Make no mistake, I feel I’m home” (444). She articulates

the pain he has caused her over the years, and as she verbalizes her frustrations, the

narrator listens. As a writer, he seems to have used much of their past marital discord as

material, and she feels exploited by his use of their past in his work. This also seems to

explain to her his sudden arrival at her door: “You’re on a fishing expedition. You’re

hunting for material” (447). He may be there for material, but he also listens, and as the

story progresses almost every paragraph begins with “She says.” The narrator acts as

Mrs. Webster does in “Fever,” prompting his ex-wife to release her emotions by sitting

silently by her side.

As the story nears the end, and as the ex-wife proceeds with her reprimand, the

narrator reaches out to touch her blouse. He then gets on his knees and holds on to her

dress. The indiscretions she remembers demand some kind of apology, and for the

narrator it seems necessary to act in some way. Their relationship always lacked

intimacy, and he attempts to provide at least a hint of what he never did before. Words

do nothing for him and so he gets on his knees in front of her. For once, this gets her

attention, and for a moment, she is dumbfounded:

She is still for a minute. But in a minute she says, Hey it’s all right,
stupid. You’re so dumb sometimes. Get up now. I’m telling you to get
up. Listen, it’s okay. I’m over it now. It took me a while to get over it.
What do you think? Did you think I wouldn’t? Then you walk in here
and suddenly the whole cruddy business is back. I felt a need to ventilate.
But you know, and I know, it’s over and done with now. (450)

49
Through communication, the ex-wife begins to give what she thinks he most needs,

attention. Finished with her verbal attack, she tells him she has a new life, and that things

are different. She has a new husband, who will be coming home for lunch shortly, and

she does not want to explain to him why her ex-husband has suddenly appeared. The

narrator stays on his knees though; he apparently has not reached the same conclusion she

has, and lacks the words to express himself. She pushes him to leave, but the narrator

stays on his knees, until finally “She says, I forgive you” (451). Her forgiveness at least

gets him to stand and head toward the door, but he has nothing to say. Like a majority of

Carver men, the narrator finds no words to complement his emotions, and like Burt and

L.D. from “A Serious Talk” and “One More Thing,” he exits the house, only this time

with a whisper rather than a crash. The ex-wife, who has stated her position, keeps

talking, however, but now, instead of rebuking him, she tries to rebuild him and allow

him the chance to reclaim something he seems to have lost:

She says, You just tell it like you have to, I guess, and forget the rest.
Like always. You been doing that for so long now anyway it shouldn’t be
hard for you.
She says, There, I’ve done it. You’re free, aren’t you? At least you
think you are anyway. Free at last. That’s a joke, but don’t laugh.
Anyway, you feel better, don’t you? (452)

Still bitter, her concern and inclination for him to keep on with what he has been doing

indicates a strong sense of command she holds in their association. “She tells her ex-

husband he is ‘free’ to do as he likes, to write what he wants, but implies that freedom, at

least as far as they are concerned, is merely a construction of the mind” (Nesset 99). The

ex-wife has had the opportunity to speak her mind, and now the narrator must go back

into the world with the knowledge that he is free from his past relationship only because

his ex-wife has a new life that no longer involves him. As he departs the house, he strolls

50
down the sidewalk and notices piles of leaves accumulating everywhere he walks.

“Somebody ought to make an effort here,” he notes. “Somebody ought to get a rake and

take care of this” (453). The leaves suggest the scattered remains of his life, and whether

he decides to collect those strewn remnants and resume his life is unknown as the story

closes. The ex-wife has made her peace with the narrator and released him back into the

world. Her independence from him marks an uncertain future for him, and the leaves

represent all the possibilities the narrator could take. As the story closes, however, the

narrator shows no signs of taking such an opportunity, and he is left like many other

Carver males--with an indefinite future and a failure to communicate.

The narrator recognizes that the leaves need to be collected and organized;

however, the idea that his own life requires restoration is of a different order. As Meyer

notes:

He would like a return to order and stasis, it seems, but will not actively
do anything to bring it about. He wants ‘somebody’ to do it, but he won’t
do it himself. While the narrator might be marked as a success in the
public sphere, it is the ex-wife who can be marked a success in this story.
She is relying on herself and moving forward, however tentatively, while
the narrator seems to be languishing in indecisiveness. (155)

Meyer continues by suggesting that “Intimacy” recalls Carver’s earlier works by the way

characters fail to reach connections and comprehend failure, yet amongst these

characteristics is the notion that the ex-wife had already moved on long before. The

incident with the narrator serves only to allow her the chance to rebuke him verbally one

final time. Her life continues in a more normal fashion than his, and in some way, the

occasion means much less to her than it does to him.

Likewise, the same kind of indifference towards men surfaces in “Blackbird Pie,”

when the wife decides to leave her husband, alerting him with a letter she slips

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underneath his door one night after dinner. The story draws the attention of critics

because of its expressionism and use of dreamlike qualities, such as the sudden

appearance of horses from the fog at the end of the story; however, another aspect of the

story revolves around the crumbling confidence of the husband, who upon receiving the

letter adamantly asserts that his wife has not written the letter.

Residing in a house in the hills, the couple takes different approaches to isolation.

“Frankly, I was glad for the solitude,” the narrator admits. “But she was a woman who

was used to having friends, used to dealing with shopkeepers and tradesmen” (494). The

differences divide the couple, and finally the wife slips her husband the note,

acknowledging the strife that has grown for the past twenty-three years between them.

Yet, as the narrator notes, “Most important, however, the handwriting was not my wife’s

handwriting” (491). His failure to notice the contents of the letter is one thing, but not

recognizing the handwriting suggests how far the husband has drifted away from

identifying his own wife. With her on the verge of leaving him, he remains transfixed by

the letter (remaining in his own room, no less) as she prepares to depart in the living

room. The design of the two-room house embodies the separation between the couple, as

the husband’s room connects to his wife’s room by one hallway, and the husband’s first

instinct is to open his door and confront her:

My first impulse was to walk rapidly down the corridor and into the
living room and get to the bottom of this thing once and for all. But I
didn’t want to act impulsively and possibly discredit myself. I’m not
impulsive, so I waited. But there was activity of some sort in the house--
something was afoot, I was sure of it--and of course it was my duty, for
my own peace of mind, not to mention the possible safety and well-being
of the wife, to act. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. The moment was there, but I
hesitated. (500)

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Action does not happen and the husband retreats, as most early Carver men would have

done. He remains conflicted over the situation, and instead of facing his problems in an

upfront manner, he recoils into his room until he hears the front door slam. Finally, he is

drawn from his room, but only to find an empty living room--his wife has left.

He discovers her outside in a cloud of fog surrounded by a few horses that had

escaped from a neighboring property. A deputy and a rancher drive into the yard, and as

they work to gather the horses, the wife explains to her husband why she is outside,

dressed to leave. The whole ordeal takes on a surreal feeling for the husband, however,

and his confusion prompts the wife to make sure he is paying attention. “I’d been

watching them round up the horses,” the husband says. “The deputy was holding his

flashlight while the rancher walked a horse up a little ramp into the trailer. I turned to

look at this woman I didn’t know any longer” (504). This woman, who has become so

foreign to the husband that he cannot accept that the writing in the letter is hers,

announces her decision to leave. Her final rejection of him comes in front of two other

men, and his role of husband is questioned alongside his role as a man. Rarely has one of

Carver’s stereotypical male figures been so closely contrasted to another man without any

distinguishable weaknesses. Here, the narrator must experience humiliation in front of

two men, both of whom appear more rugged and Western than the narrator. At one point,

the narrator remarks about their attire: “I found it worth nothing that both men were

wearing hats. I ran my hand through my hair, and was sorry I wasn’t wearing a hat of my

own” (504). Later, as the wife prepares to leave, she also dons a hat, and it allows a

subtle examination of how empty the husband really is. “His uncovered state suggests an

53
exposed vulnerability and emphasizes his difference. Here on his own doorstep, he is the

outsider, helpless and forced to watch as his wife leaves with the rancher” (Campbell 81).

His masculinity questioned, and his wife leaving, the narrator resembles many of

Carver’s earlier men--befuddled and comatose. His wife, on the other hand, takes a

similar approach as the ex-wife in “Intimacy;” she progresses beyond the uncertainties to

a world of new opportunities. This picture reappears throughout Carver’s work, yet one

development takes place in the final pages of the story unseen in early work. After his

wife has departed, the narrator reflects on his past wrongdoings, and in the process, he

begins to contemplate the history of his life. As a man who claims to recall the important

dates of history (a fact proven erroneous earlier in the story), he wonders about the

condition of his life and its past and future:

If I know anything--and I do--if I know the slightest thing about human

nature, I know she won’t be able to live without me. She’ll come back to
me. And soon. Let it be soon.
No, I don’t know anything about anything, and I never did. She’s gone
for good. She is. I can feel it. Gone and never coming back. Period. Not
ever. I won’t see her again, unless we run into each other on the street
somewhere. (510)

Finally, a man has an epiphany, but it comes far too late for anything to be done about it.

The realization that the woman is capable of carrying on in life without the assistance of

the insignificant male figure comes to the narrator as he is left to gather the pieces of a

broken marriage. Elsewhere in Carver’s work, this awareness of masculine deficiency in

contrast with feminine persuasion remains only an intimation that requires exploration.

The wife in “Blackbird Pie” takes the necessary action to alleviate the obstacles in her

life and marriage, and in doing so, she demonstrates the qualities of previous Carver

women. Determination brings her to the end of a marriage and allows her to seek a new

54
existence beyond the fog, somewhere where the rancher can take her that evening as she

leaves the narrator with his house and his history.

At the end of “The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off,” found in What We

Talk About When We Talk About Love, the narrator and his father stare out over the ruins

of a flooded pasture. The land once belonged to Dummy, who when he heard word of his

wife’s affairs “Did in his wife with a hammer and drowned himself” (102). As officers

search the flooded area for remains of Dummy, the narrator looks at his father: “His face

was funny the way it was set. ‘Women,’ he said. ‘That’s what the wrong kind of woman

can do to you, Jack’” (103). Later, the narrator reflects on his father’s words: “But I

don’t think Dad really believed it. I think he just didn’t know who to blame or what do

say” (103). The narrator perfectly summarizes a scene that epitomizes the relationships

between men and women in Raymond Carver’s short fiction. A man, unable to express

what he feels, finds words that are empty of meaning, and in the process suggests a

division between men and women.

The division between men and women throughout Carver’s work remains a topic

in need of more critical examination, as the relationships in his stories feature dynamic

characters and scenarios ripe for analysis. If many critics recognize Carver’s fiction as a

progression from Hemingway and Chekhov, eventually the study of his style must give

way to the study of themes and characters. While criticism that engages these concepts is

materializing, a fair amount of work still focuses on Carver’s career as a minimalist. The

relationships between men and women in Carver’s work offer an enormous opportunity

for critics to consider gender roles in the latter parts of the twentieth century in

conjunction with the literature of the period. Men in Carver’s work often find trouble

55
with the unexplainable situations that dominate their lives, and in contrast, women

surface as the prevailing figures in relationships. With each volume, Carver expanded

the roles that women played, yet always suggested that females kept an advantage over

men in their capacity to handle the problems of everyday life. As men abandon their

customary roles and suffer with a disassociation that separates them from their normal

environment, women emerge as the assertive characters determined to find triumph as

best they can.

56
BIBLIOGRAPHY

57
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bedell, Jack, and Norman German. “Echoes of Slammed Doors: Resonant Closure in
Raymond Carver’s Fiction.” Short Story 8.2 (2000): 87-93.

Bell, Madison. “Less is Less: The Dwindling American Short Story.” Harper’s, April
1986, 64-69.

Boxer, David and Cassandra Phillips. “Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?: Voyeurism,
Dissociation, and the Art of Raymond Carver.” Iowa Review 10:3 (1979): 75-90.

Bullock, Chris. “From Castle to Cathedral: The Architecture of Masculinity in Raymond

Carver’s ‘Cathedral’.” The Journal of Men’s Studies 2.4 (1994): 343-51.

Campbell, Ewing. Raymond Carver: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne,
1992.

Carver, Raymond. Cathedral. 1983. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1989.

---. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. 1981. New York: Vintage
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---. Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? 1976. New York: Vintage Contemporaries,
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Facknitz, Mark. “Raymond Carver and the Menace of Minimalism.” CEA Critic 52
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Gentry, Marshall Bruce. “Women’s Voices in Stories by Raymond Carver.” CEA Critic
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(1989): 391-401,419.

May, Charles. “Raymond Carver.” In Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Supplement,

edited by Frank N. Magill. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Salem, 1987.

---. “‘Do You See What I’m Saying’: The Inadequacy of Explanation and the
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Meyer, Adam. Raymond Carver. New York: Twayne, 1995.

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Stull, William. Beyond Hopelessville: Another Side of Raymond Carver.” Philological
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Vander Weele, Michael. “Raymond Carver and the Language of Desire.” Denver
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