Difficulty Humans Have in Communicating

¶ … difficulty humans have in communicating their thoughts and feelings about anything meaningful, in particular, about love. There is an emotional price that people have to pay in these stories, in going through the search for meaning at any level.

What does love really mean to people? How do people express love and fondness and make it come out the way they want it to? Is sadness a necessary theme in all relationships? The Rose for Emily is quite different from the other two stories, and yet the dearth of communication and understanding I a theme in that story too.

All three stories all end without a clear and understandable conclusion, hence, it is up to the reader to fill in the blanks that the dialogue and plot have left out. What the reader does see is the futility that results from a lack of a meaningful, sober way to connect emotionally and intellectually. Thesis: Just the sound of human voices, of conversation that is taking place between two or more people does not mean that communication is taking place.

There is a pathos to every story because something stands in the way of meaningful communication; something is blocking the full sense of what love and life are really about and it's the failure to connect one with the other that leads to the uncertainty and pathos.

In "What We Talk About when We Talk About Love" it is ironic that the principal narrator, Mel, who does much of the talking, and too much drinking, is a man who deals with hearts (a heart surgeon), but when it comes to the heart in a romantic sense, he isn't the expert in that field. In fact he seems rather clumsy at the task of really putting the nail on the head about hearts in the romantic sense.

He speaks lines that are ideal capsules for the whole problem of love and the communication of feelings in this thematic paper. Readers should be a bit cautious about anything Mel says due to the enormous amount of alcohol he is consuming, but sometimes getting a little drunk can mean you speak more honestly than when you're totally sober -- or at least that's the old wife's tale. And though that theory is not to be trusted, it's all the reader has to go on regarding Mel.

Some of Mel's pronouncements become perfect themes for the whole short story. For example: "There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do.

How do you explain that? What happened to that love?" He also said, referring to the dark reality that if one part of the couple dies for some reason, the other would "grieve for awhile…but then the surviving party would go out and love again, and have someone else soon enough." That would mean the original love was "just a memory.

Am I wrong?" In addition to the absence of good communication, alcohol and light are important themes in "White Elephants" and "What We Talk about" -- and light is also an important component in "A Rose for Emily." In What We Talk About, sunlight filled the kitchen when the story started, but the light later "…was draining out of the room, going back through the window where it had come from.

Yet nobody made a move to get up from the table to turn on the overhead light." As the kitchen gets darker, things move slower and people are more intoxicated. The symbolism is obvious in this story.

A reader could be forgiven if he or she shouted, "Would someone please shed some light on love, on relationships, on truth and dignity in this story and stop babbling through the gin!" In the White Elephant story -- as in the other two stories -- there is no resolution, no solution, readers don't know if the woman has her baby, or decides to do what the man wants, have the abortion. But light is important in this story too. The mountains looked like white elephants.

There was "no shade and no trees" so the visual is focused on bright light. Shrill light, but there is not much light shed on the real difficult decision facing the couple. There is a lot of talking around the issue. "Let's try and have a fine time," said the man. She says that the mountains look like white elephants, adding, "Wasn't that bright?" Communication between two people engaged in a love affair should have more substance than what readers experience in this very short story.

The clues are everywhere that these two have a tough time getting down to the reality that is facing them. Here they sit, waiting for transportation to Madrid for an abortion, if he gets his way. But they beat around the bush and discuss everything except what is the most vitally important.

She said, "That's all we do, isn't it -- look at things and try new drinks?" His answer to the problem is to have her go ahead and have the abortion, after all it's the "…only thing that has made us unhappy," he said.

(it is very interesting that both Hemingway and Carver are known to be alcoholics, and in both of their stories alcohol plays a part.) The most hideous moment in the Rose story is when they break into the room that has the body of the man people thought had run out on Emily; they looked.