Themes in Raymond Carvers Literature Essay -- Papers Carver Short Cut

Themes in Raymond Carvers LiteratureIn Short Cuts, by Raymond Carver, characters experience trials and problems in their lives, whether extreme such as in A Small, Good Thing and Lemonade or nominal such as in Vitamins. They all seem to interpret these struggles as uphill battles which the characters cannot and mostly do not overcome. The characters throughout Carvers Short Cuts struggle through their lives in private desperation, often to ultimately realize that they are bound to the truth of who they really are, which is shown in the story Neighbors.In Neighbors, Bill and Arlene Miller are a couple with menial jobs who give credence to the face the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. They are dissatisfied with their own lives and look to the lives of their neighbors to find happiness in their own. Once a clever couple, they often feel that they alone among their circle had been passed by somehow (13). They did not discuss how they could change their own lives, bu t merely compared their lives with the Stones. They talked about it sometimes,...