The Dirty Realism In Raymond Carver’s Short Stories

Raymond Carver (1938-1988) is a famous short story writer and poet in the latetwentieth century in America. He makes great contribution to the revitalization of the shortstory in America in1980s. Carver’s works are sparse and modest. His narration is special. Heis regarded as “the father of minimalism”. Almost all of the characters in Carver’s works areAmerican blue-collar workers. Carver gives a vivid picture of their life.There are two literary words which are closely related to Carver’s works,“minimalism”and “dirty realism”.“Minimalism” is known as the most prominent feature of Carver’swriting. It is mainly related to Carver’s sparse language characteristics. However, researchesin recent years find that Carver’s stories are edited by an editor named Godish Lish whosedeletion and edition possibly lead to the minimalist style. Therefore,“minimalism” may notbe the style what Carver wants originally. More and more critics promote that “dirty realism”can sum up Carver’s entire career more accurately. These two literary words are notcontradictory. Both of them can generate Carver’s short stories and poems. The characters inCarver’s stories are the normal American blue-collar workers who are the losers of life. Theirunsuccessful marriage and their life difficulties are the themes Carver writes most. AllCarver’s language features, his themes and the narrative features demonstrate his dirtyrealism.This thesis is composed of five parts: introduction, conclusion, and three chapters. Theintroduction part briefly presents Raymond Carver and his major short-story collections, presents a literary criticism at home and abroad, and demonstrates the focus and structure ofthis thesis. Chapter one analyzes Carver’s dirty language features. Chapter two analyzes thethemes of the “dirty” aspects of real life in Carver’s fiction. Chapter three penetrates Carver’sunique narrative techniques to represent his dirty realism. All these three chapters are made toserve Carver’s overall opinions regarding the dirty realism. Finally, a conclusion is drawn atthe end. Through this paper, the author tries to demonstrate that all these three aspects reflectCarver’s dirty realism.