Owners Of A Lonely Heart: Carver

With this story, it seems we are back to Hemingway and the white elephants. Once again we have a story centering around conversation, relationships, and love (or lack thereof) – while all the while the alcohol flows.

Like the Hemingway story, however, it seems like these characters are also well versed in not quite getting to the heart of what they’re feeling and being able to state it. For instance, there must be a reason Terri so vehemently argues that her former lover did in fact love her, even though he was violent. Was there something in that previous relationship that is lacking in her current one with Mel? We don’t know because it’s not spoken.

Why, too, does Mel all of a sudden hit on Laura? Is it just the alcohol, or something deeper? Again, we don’t know. Even the title reflects this hesitance because after the story is over, one still doesn’t really know what it is we really talk about when we talk about love. Relationships? The need to belong? Who knows?

Then, in the end, perhaps things get a little too honest, and everyone reverts back to talking about food, trying to restore a level of superficiality. Interestingly, it is at this point that the narrator says: “I could hear everyone’s heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making.”