A Study Of Narrative Approaches Of Raymond Carver’s Short Stories

Raymond Carver is a distinguished contemporary short-story writer and poet andis honored as the most influential short-story writer in America after Hemingway. Hehas published short stories collections such as Will You Please Be Quiet, Please, WhatWe Talk About When We Talk About Love, and Cathedral. Most of the characters inCarver’s stories are those who live in the bottom of American society and havedrinking problem or mental problem. Thus Carver’s stories are also labeled “dirtyrealism”. Though Carver showed his unique style in his theme, more of his personalcharacteristics are shown by his narrative approaches. Raymond Carver’s short storiesare combined by fragmented plots, simple conversations, and open endings. Thesecharacteristics of minimalism raise his stories into another level.This thesis aims to analyze Raymond Carver’s short stories in the view ofnarratology. Taking What We Talk About When We Talk About Love as an example, theanalysis would be proceeded from narrative person and focalization, narrative time,and endings. The narrative persons Carver used in his stories are mainly thefirst-person narrator and the third-person narrator, and the focalizations used are zerofocalization, internal focalization and external focalization. To achieve differentnarrative effects, Carver matched them into various combinations. In the case ofnarrative time, Carver controlled the order, duration and frequency of stories flexiblyto make them present different rhythm and more interesting. Last, the endings ofstories also show Carver’s originality. Stories ending in a sudden allow readers tothink by themselves.Raymond Carver’s short stories embodied extraordinary narrative skills andstrategies. Using these strategies, Carver successfully made his stories outstandingand popular among the world.