It is his reaction to Terri’s recollection of Ed, his story about the elderly couple in the road accident, and his discussion of his ex-wife, which form the core of Carver’s story.Įvery detail here is worth analysing closely. And Mel McGinnis is arguably the most important character in ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’. Indeed, Nick in many ways occupies a similar position to that of another Nick, Nick Carraway of The Great Gatsby, in that he is the narrator of the story but the main character is someone else he is observing. Once again, Mel has proved himself innocent and even idealistic and ignorant about the realities of the ‘heart’. However, Nick points out that knights sometimes suffered fatal heart attacks in their armour when they became immobilised or too hot. Mel also says that he would love to come back in another life as a medieval knight, because they were safe in their armour.

Other ‘matters of the heart’, we might say, such as love, are as mysterious to him as they are to the others. He is a heart surgeon, but by his own admission he’s just a ‘mechanic’ who fixes things that people have physically wrong with them. Mel’s job is also rich with symbolism, but also irony. It is perhaps significant that this moment leads the four adults to grin at each other like children: they have been made more innocent by the light, rather than wiser or more experienced.

It is already suspect, we might say, because it has the effect of making the domestic reality of Mel’s kitchen into an enchanted space: somewhere unreal and fantastical, in other words. The light transforms the room into somewhere that seems enchanted or magical.Īnd yet, if this is a moment of potential epiphany – that moment of revelation or enlightenment characters experience in modern fiction, and especially in short stories – the light, and the enlightenment, will be short-lived. It is significant that, in contrast to the final paragraph of the story when the kitchen is plunged into darkness, an earlier moment saw the afternoon sun flooding the room with a light which Nick describes as easy and generous. But is this ‘love’ either? Or is it lust and passion, which in the heady first days (and months) of romance we mistake for love? This is a question Carver’s narrative invites us to ask ourselves.

What we do when we talk about love