What We Talk ABout When We Talk ABout Love

The short story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, by Raymond Carver, is about two married couples drinking gin and having a talk about the nature of love. The conversation is a little sloppy, and the characters make some comments which could either be meaningless because of excessive alcohol in the bloodstream, or could be the characters' true feelings because of excessive alcohol in the bloodstream. Overall, the author uses this conversation …

…is trying to show the nature of love. The author, by using a conversation between two couples, shows us that love starts off misunderstood, and will either die off as the relationship progresses, or will develop into something much more meaningful. While one could argue that some of the comments the characters made were purely out of intoxication and were therefore meaningless, it is also possible that the characters were letting out their true feelings.