What We Talk About When We Talk About Love By Raymond Carver

Love and hate are closely related. You can love someone so much that you end up hating them, or you can “hate” someone but end up loving them. An example of the relationship of love and hate can be seen in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by Raymond Carver. Carver states, “Terry said the man she lived with before she lived with Mel loved her so much he tried to kill her” (876). Typically, someone would want to kill someone else because that person hated the other person, not because they loved them. That feeling and emotion of love quickly turned into actions of hate. Although Mel did not believe that was love, Terry insisted that it was.

Another example of how love and hate are closely related is the relationship between Mel
and his ex wife. He must have loved her at one point. However, Terry mentions, “If I’m not praying she’ll get married again, I’m praying she’ll get stung to death by a swarm of fucking bees” (884). Terry then goes on to explain that he sometimes wants to dress up as a beekeeper and fill her house with bees. It’s unbelievable to think that Terry would have wanted to marry his ex wife, but now he wishes she would die. This proves that love can die eventually lead to hatred.