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Love is defined as “a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.” Love can be physical, spiritual, and sentimental, but can it be violent? In Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” the topic of “violent love” is discussed in depth by four friends. The story offers insight into the belief in violent love and raises thought-provoking questions. Does this “violent love” really exist, or is it just a perversion of common, everyday love? Is this “violent love” different from nonviolent love? Can love turn violent? These critical questions are the main focus “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” The story opens with the narrator and his wife Laura, with their friends Mel and his second wife Terri, sitting at the kitchen table. The group is engaged in conversation over a bottle of gin, trading stories, when the subject of love comes up. Mel begins to speak of the “crazy” love between Terri and a man named Ed. Ed was abusive to Terri, threatening to Mel, and destructive to himself.
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