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Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
“What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” is set in Mel and Terri’s kitchen in Albuquerque, New Mexico, likely in the late 1970s or early 1980s (the time period in which the story was written). The story features four characters (two couples—Mel and Terri, and Nick and Laura), all of whom have either been married or had serious relationships before pairing with their current partner. Such a scenario would have been much less common in the 1950s or 1960s, when divorce was seen as abnormal or even scandalous. In this way, Carver is commenting on new conceptualizations of love, romance, and marriage that emerged in the 1970s.
Another key element of the setting is the way the sun moves through the kitchen over the course of the story, as well as how it mirrors the emotional state of the characters. The sunlight in the room is initially described as a “spacious light of ease and generosity,” but it changes as the sun gradually sets throughout the story. The following description of the sun comes a few pages before the end of the story:
The sunshine inside the room was different now, changing, getting thinner. But the leaves outside the window were still shimmering, and I stared at the pattern they made on the panes and on the Formica counter.
Here, Nick (the narrator) describes how the sunshine is “different” than it was at the start of the story—specifically, it is “thinner.” He notes, though, that the sun is shining on the leaves of a tree outside in such a way that they are “still shimmering” and forming interesting patterns on the windows and counters. All of these details combine to communicate that, though the couples’ conversation about love has become tenser and more convoluted over the course of the evening, they are, at this point, still enjoying the conversation.
It is notable that, at the end of the story, the sun has fully set—Nick describes the room they are in as "dark." This symbolizes how, at the end of the story, the group of friends is, on the whole, in the dark about what love is and how they are, after all this time, no closer to being able to capture it with words.
Related Themes:
