Houses of Identity: Inhabiting and Emerging from Despair
The physical settings of Raymond Carver’s stories, in particular the living spaces his characters inhabit, present readers with images of the characters’ intimate identities. By studying the way characters perceive these spaces, readers can observe in detail the ontological “reality” of life in Carv...
Enregistré dans:
| Udgivet i: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse, |
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| Hovedforfatter: | |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Sprog: | Anglais |
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Journal of the Short Story in English
2006
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| Online adgang: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Summary: | The physical settings of Raymond Carver’s stories, in particular the living spaces his characters inhabit, present readers with images of the characters’ intimate identities. By studying the way characters perceive these spaces, readers can observe in detail the ontological “reality” of life in Carver’s story worlds. From this perspective, typical thematic issues such as confinement and helplessness are particularized in ways that demonstrate a phenomenological process of being, rather than the mere facts of isolation and despair. Applying Gaston Bachelard’s phenomenological concepts of dynamic being to Carver’s texts, readers can observe the ways in which living spaces define and confine character identities, while at the same time witnessing how the subtlest moments of character perception hold the potential for growth and change. Carver’s stories reveal a variety of strategies for moving characters through their story worlds. Occasionally, Carver helps them along by taking them out of problematic settings, but more typically identities evolve through processes of perception and reflection: a glimpse outside one’s dwelling place; the memory of past residences; or transformative visions of identity, based upon the reenvisioning of one’s own dwelling. |
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