论文总字数：45215字

摘 要

Introduction 1

Chapter One Television: Reflection of Meaningless Life 4

1.1 Television with Silence 4

1.2 Television and Family Crisis 6

Chapter Two Liquor: Self-paralysis in Reality 8

2.1 Liquor and Self-hypnosis 8

2.2 Liquor and Communication 9

Chapter Three Window: Division Between Present and Future 12

3.1 Self-isolation—Inside the Window 12

3.2 Insecurity for Future—Outside the Window 14

Conclusion 17

Works Cited 18

Acknowledgements

First, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Zhu Litian, for her warm-hearted encouragement and valuable advice, especially for her insightful comments and suggestions on the draft of this paper. Without her help and guidance, I could not have completed this paper.

My sincere thanks also go to all the English teachers at the School of Foreign Languages in Southeast University. They have unfolded the charm of English for me, and provided me with fundamental and essential academic competence.

Last but not least, I am deeply indebted to my family members and friends for their affection and inspiration. They are always giving spiritual support to me.

Abstract

Raymond Carver (1938-1988) is an American short story writer and poet, whose works contribute to the revitalization of the American short fiction during the 1970s and the 1980s. Carver is a main representative of minimalism and dirty realism in American literature and one of the most important novelists in the second half of the twentieth century.

Raymond Carver’s writing is famous for minimalism and dirty realism. His writing material is from American society during the 1950s and the 1960s, and most of his works are about the daily life of the general public. People’s life is unchangeable, boring and even depression, which is full of mediocrity and grief. Carver expresses the negative emotion through the words and behaviors of his characters as well as cultural images. According to Carver, “it’s possible, in a poem or a short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things with immense, even startling power.”

This thesis attempts to analyze three major cultural images in Carver’s collection of short stories What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and explore the underlying context. Chapter One focuses on television and the reality of daily life of the general public in America by analyzing television’s controlling force to people’s life. Chapter Two discusses people’s mental world and the communication among people by examining the cause of drinking problem. Chapter Three deals with the division between present and future. The cultural image of window shows self-isolation and insecurity about future. By discussing Carver’s life experience, American society and writing style of minimalism, it can be concluded that during the 1950s and the 1960s in America, the general public was at a loss and unable to communicate with each other, finally they became isolated in normal life. However, some of Carver’s short stories in later period show that if people have the courage to be socially reintegrated and communicate with others, they will become positive again.

Key words: Raymond Carver; What We Talk About When We Talk About Love; Cultural Images; Minimalism

摘要

雷蒙德·卡佛（Raymond Carver，1938-1988），“美国二十世纪下半叶最重要的小说家”和小说界“简约主义”大师。卡佛一生作品以短篇小说和诗为主，还有一部分散文，其20世纪70年代后写作成就渐受瞩目，成为美国文坛上罕见的“艰难时世”的观察者和表达者，并被誉为“新小说”创始者。

雷蒙德·卡佛的作品集中展现了“极简主义”和 “肮脏现实主义”的写作风格。卡佛笔下描写的是上世纪五、六十年代的美国社会，平民日常生活的乏味、琐碎、无聊及其背后的愚昧、平庸、悲哀、无奈，他的作品仿佛不带个人情绪，但内心的郁闷不时通过主人公的言行和频繁出现的典型意象表现出来。用卡佛自己的话说就是“用普通但准确的语言，去写普通的事物，并赋予这些普通的事物，以广阔而惊人的力量，这是可以做到的。写一句表面上看起来无伤大雅的寒暄，并随之传递给读者冷彻骨髓的寒意，这是可以做到的。”

本文将以雷蒙德·卡佛短篇小说集《当我们谈论爱情时我们在谈论什么》中的文化意象为主线，从作品中的电视、酒和窗户这三个典型意象出发进行分析与解读。第一章着眼于电视这一文化意象，通过解读电视与人们生活状态的关系，展示当时美国大众的无聊、乏味的真实生活状态。第二章借助酒的文化意象进一步探讨人对自我的认知和人与人之间缺乏交流或逃避交流的状态，通过分析人与酒的关系解读普通民众的内心世界。第三章从窗户这一文化意象入手，借以分析人透过窗户的所见所想及窗外事物来揭示人们自我封闭，逃避现实以及对当下和未来缺乏安全感的心理状态。最后本文将结合作者自身经历、美国当时社会环境和作者极简主义的写作风格，进一步分析并得出结论：美国在二战结束之后的五、六十年代，普通民众在乏味无聊的日常生活中逐渐迷失自我，自我封闭和丧失沟通交流能力的真实生活状态。但是人们只要勇于走出自我的世界，人与人是可以沟通与和解的，社会面貌依然可以积极向上，这在他后期的部分小说中也可以看出。

关键词：雷蒙德·卡佛；《当我们谈论爱情时我们在谈论什么》；文化意象；极简主义

Introduction

Born in Clatskanie, Oregon, Raymond Carver (1938-1988) is a prominent American writer in the twentieth century, best known for his short story collections Will You Be Quiet, Please? (1976), What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981), and Cathedral (1983). In his short stories, characteristics of minimalism and dirty realism are generally seen as his hallmarks. Carver’s works focus on sadness, depression, and loss in the everyday lives of common people in American society. Carver helps the American short story regain popularity in the literary world.

Raymond Carver grew up in Yakima, Washington. Carver’s father, a sawmill worker from Arkansas, was a fisherman and heavy drinker and his mother worked on and off as a waitress and a retail clerk. Carver became interested in writing in California, where he met the novelist John Gardner and attended his creative writing course. John Gardner had a major influence on Carver’s life and career and Carver is also influenced by Ernest Hemingway, who shares the same writing style.

Originally, minimalism is a style in the visual arts and music that uses pared-down design elements. Minimalism began in post-World War II Western art. It originated from the reductive aspect of Modernism and is seen as a reaction against abstract expressionism and a connection with postminimalist art practices. (unnatural transition) The revitalization of American short fiction began during the 1970s and the 1980s. Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie, and Tobias Wolff are the representatives of minimalism writers. Minimalism in short fiction is both influenced by minimalism in arts and the Iceberg Theory by Ernest Hemingway. American short story writers that adopt minimalism follow the principle “less is more”, and their literary works employ the most concise writing material and express the most abundant and meaningful life experience. The deeper meaning of the short fiction shines through implication rather than on the surface.

Overseas scholars have conducted systematic studies on Raymond Carver and his literary works. When Raymond Carver’s first collection of short stories Will You Be Quiet, Please? was published in 1976, Jeffrey Wolf published a book review in New York Times, and wrote that it was deliberately simplified, reflecting the anxiety, depression and frustration of the lower class in the United States. In 1981, Carver’s another collection of short stories What We Talk About When We Talk About Love made American literary minimalism develop to a higher stage. This work aroused heated discussion in the literary circle and it was seen to be a mirror of the American society during that period of time. Studies abroad on Raymond Carver began from the 1980s and flourished at the end of the 1990s. During the 1980s and the 1990s, early studies mainly focused on the writing style and writing techniques of minimalism with various research findings. There were three major aspects, including the comparison between minimalism and simplism, the origin of minimalism writing techniques, and theme analysis. It was believed that Carver tried to express the lower class’s emotional loss, lack of communication and hopelessness of life with minimalism writing style. From the 1990s and onward, scholars delved into Raymond Carver’s works in diversified trends, combining Carver’s short stories with consumption culture, providing readers with a new perspective of interpretation.

In contrast, studies on Raymond Carver did not commence until the 2000s in China. The quantity of both translation and research papers is quite limited. According to the academic papers which are collected by the present authors, most of them are explorations about minimalism writing techniques, the themes, or the uncertainty of endings. In recent years, more studies have been carried out, including Tang Weisheng’s research on the uncertainty of Carver’s short stories’ endings, Hu Xiufang’s analysis of the themes, and Wu Shan’s exploration of Carver’s short stories writing techniques.

This thesis attempts to analyze three major cultural images in Raymond Carver’s short stories. Studying typical cultural images in Carver’s short stories provides readers and researchers with a new way of understanding the deeper meaning of his literary works. All those cultural images, including television, liquor and window, are from American ordinary people’s everyday life. This thesis consists of three chapters and each chapter focuses on one major cultural image.

Chapter One contains two parts, television with silence and television and family crisis, both reflecting ordinary people’s meaningless life. People spend more time on television rather than the real life. However, they don’t really have interest in what happens on TV, and they just want to kill time and escape from the reality by watching television. Their lives have too many intolerable things, such as silence and family crisis.

Chapter Two focuses on the cultural image liquor. The cultural image of liquor reveals the general public’s complex emtions and humanistic connotations in the real world. They cannot face the real life because of lacking courage. So in another way, they indulge themselves in the world of liquor. It seems that they can only survive in this way.

Chapter Three discusses another significant cultural image-window. There are two symbolic meanings of this image. Being inside the window is more like a shelter in people’s psychological world. To be more specific, they are self-isolated. However, the world outside the window is full of insecurity and uncertainty for the general public. They are afraid of facing the present and future life.

In conclusion, the author further explores the causes of common people’s psychological problems by analyzing Raymond Carver’s life experience and self-realization, America’s social background and writing style of minimalism. To conclude, cultural images play an important role in Raymond Carver’s short stories and indicate that most American ordinary people are lost, become self-paralyzed and self-isolated, they feel insecure for the future after WWII during the 1950s and the 1960s. However, Carver does not lose hope for life totally, and it is suggested that people can regain confidence to life and live a hopeful new life if they are determined to walk out of their own world and try to communicate with others.

Chapter One Television: Reflection of Meaningless Life

Television as a significant cultural image appears constantly in Raymond Carver’s short stories. According to Carver, television is one of the symbols of American common people’s life in America during the 1950s and the 1960s. During that period, television was one of the most significant means for entertainment in their spare time. So this chapter explores what impact the cultural image of television might have on Carver’s short story writing.

The meaning of “television” in Raymond Carver’s works has no similarity with those of mass media culture study. In Carver’s short stories, television causes people to have less conversation but more difficulties in communication, which is also one of the features of literary minimalism. This cultural image builds a bridge from short story writing to minimalism in literature. Carver also suggests that if people want to escape from the meaningless life, they have to get rid of the control of television.

1.1 Television with silence

“Why Don’t You Dance?” is the first short story in Raymond Carver’s collection of short stories What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. It tells the story of a girl with her boyfriend selecting timeworn furniture on their way home.

At the beginning of this short story, a man decided to sell most of his furniture in the flea market because it seemed that he has broken up with his girlfriend or wife. No other background information is given about the girl and her boyfriend. However, the boy’s bizarre behavior confuses the readers:

“Let’s see what they want for the bed,” the girl said. “And for the TV,” the boy said. （Carver, Why Don’t You Dance?, 2).

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.

“It’s a pretty good TV,” the boy said. （Carver, Why Don’t You Dance?, 3).

The girl is very excited about the old furniture and tries to compare the furniture in order to choose some better ones. On the contrary, the boy seems like having no interest in anything except the old television. As soon as they step into the flea market, he takes notice of the television. Moreover, he turns on the television and stays still in front of it, ignoring the girl, their conversation and all other things.

Obviously, it can be seen from the description that there is no picture or sound on television, but the boy still buries himself in his own imaginary world with the television. Maybe readers can find the answer to the title, why don’t you dance? It shows that the boy is totally controlled by the television and he refuses to talk with others if there is a television.

At the beginning of another short story “After the Denim,” the television with silence appears again:

The TV played without any volume as she sat on the sofa with her legs tucked under her and turned the pages of a magazine. （Carver, After the Denim, 35).

As can be seen, television is indispensable in American people’s daily life. People are not concerned about TV programs, TV is mute, but people get used to having television around, in other words, they rely too much on TV.

“Cathedral” is one of Raymond Carver’s most famous short stories. The story begins with the narrator telling readers that his wife has a blind friend Robert and the blind friend is going to visit them. The narrator is clearly not satisfied with the upcoming guest and he even has stereotypes for the blind man because the blind in the movies leave no good impression on the narrator’s mind. Although his wife is very talkative and maintains conversations between the guest and her “inarticulate” husband:

We had us two or three more drinks while they talked about the major things that had come to pass for them in the past ten years. For the most part, I just listened. Now and then I joined in. I didn’t want him to think I’d left the room, and I didn’t want her to think I was feeling left out. (Carver, Cathedral, 12).

On the one hand, the narrator is jealous about his wife’s close friendship with the blind visitor and doesn’t want any more connection with Robert. On the other hand, he can’t totally neglect their conversation and wants to be respected. When it comes to Robert and the narrator staying together without his wife, the narrator can’t wait to ask television for help:

Finally when I thought he was beginning to run down, I got up and turned on the TV……I didn’t know what to say to that. I had absolutely nothing to say to that. No opinions. So I watched the news program and tried to listen to what the annoucer was saying. (Carver, Cathedral, 14).

The silence begins between the narrator and the blind guest. As a host, he avoids communicating with Robert by watching television. Of course, he does not really want to watch the news program but needs the sound from the television to ease the embarrassment between them. For him, the television seems more “friendly”, and the narrator only needs to receive information and is not necessary to respond.

So we kept on with it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now……he said. “Take a look. What do you think?” But I had my eyes closed. I thought I’d keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do……My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything. “It was really something,” I said. (Carver, Cathedral, 16).

Raymond Carver makes a turning point at the ending. The narrator leaves the television and talks with the blind friend, drawing together. In that process, they get closer and have much more understanding about each other. That is the beauty of communication, and that is the beauty of the real meaningful life. Finally, the narrator seems to find this feeling by his own determination and effort. Carver also wants to show that people have the power to get away from the control of television if they want to.

1.2 Television and Family Crisis

The cultural image of television also appears constantly in another short story Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit. When the protagonist found his mother’s love affair, he mentioned “the TV was going” twice in that scene:

I’ve seen somethings. I was going over to my mother’s to stay a few nights. ……It was summer. The door was open. The TV was going. That’s one of the things I’ve seen. …… She was kissing him back, and the TV was going.

But we had things in common, Rose and me, which was more than just the same woman. For example, he couldn’t fix the TV when it went crazy and we lost the picture. I couldn’t fix it either. We had volume, but no picture. If we wanted the news, we had to sit around the screen and listen. （Carver, Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit, 9).

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