When reading Raymond Carvar stories, I noticed right away how different this story is then the ones we have read this past semester. Raymond Carvar style of writing in more smoother and easy to understand right away. Usually reading stories or articles it takes me twice to read to fully process what is happening. His method of writing is very specific where you can picture the story, and very straightforward. When reading the other stories such as “Oedipus the King”, it is more advice writing that lots of metaphors is being used to describe a problem. “Many, my children, are the tears I’ve wept, and threaded many a maze of weary thought” ( Oedipus). This is expressing the feeling of grief. Reading Oedipus the king, I had to read back many times and search up many words for their meaning, I did have several troubles understand the story when I read it once but when I read it twice and understand each problem of each line it got more easier.
Daily Archives: May 5, 2024
Compare/contrast the pared down writing style of Raymond Carver to the style of another writer whose work we have read this semester. Provide examples from both stories to support your ideas. When reading this question I immediately thought of “Salavation” written by Langston Hughes because I feel as if both tones were raw and direct. In “Salvation,” Hughes recounts a moment from his youth when he grappled with the concept of salvation and the expectations of his community. “I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen. But not really saved. It happened like this.”(Hughes, Line 1). Similarly Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” uses a raw tone, reflecting the characters’ struggle to connect emotionally. For instance, the narrator describes his wife’s past interactions with Robert, saying, “They talked of things that had happened to them—to them!—these past ten years.”(Carver,218)
I would say the author Raymond Carver’s writing style exercises simplicity while also targeting the key points of literature. Some of these key points I am referring to is the attention to detail to make the reader imagine what is being talked about but he does it in a way that you can understand it. ” October. Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen I study my father’s embarrassed young man’s face. Sheepish grin, he holds in one hand a string of spiny yellow perch, in the other a bottle of Carlsbad Beer” (Carver). Most of the time when I’m am reading a story, i would have to read it once or twice in order for me to understand what the context of the story is or to help myself grasp the emotional scene. With the writing of Raymond Carver, I find myself only having to read his work once. This reminds me of the story “The Handsomest Drowned Man” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marquez used detail that was easy to understand but also gave you enough to receive the emotion of every character in this story. Marquez’s explanation of expression on the women’s faces when they found the drowned man let us know how they were all feeling when they saw him. The body language of the husbands told us of the annoyance they had with their wives being so infatuated with this dead man, as the husbands referred to him as.
In the Story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, the terror that the readers feel is so much more intense and more interesting then when watching a terrifying movie, in my opinion. When an author is writing a story with the objective of the story being to scare or intimidate the audience, He or she can do it in many ways and be done in the story. One of these ways is that he or she can use explicit detail with imagery. They can also do this with the scenery. With the scary story, you wont miss a beat. every detail that the author wants you to notice , will be clear for you to see and feel. On the other hand, win regards to the movies, some times you have to watch the movie a couple times to understand it or even did yourself seeing different things in the movie that you did not the first time. Don’t get me wrong, this is sometimes fun to do when you see a video on a video or something and you go back to analyze the movie but with a book you get it all in one shot. also with a book you can kind of place yourself there because you are creating the scenery in your imagination as the author gives you the layout.
during class when we read Raymond Carver’s work I noticed that his style of writing is simple and to the the point. the way he tells his stories makes it easy for whoever is reading because he writes casually almost as if he is speaking and telling his story out loud. This writer doesn’t describe his stories using words that have a sense of imagination or mystery to them when reading his story Cathedral you can see his simple and casual way of going through the story. looking through his work I’ve noticed that what he writes about has a sense of realism to it. comparing his work with the poet Robert Frost this poet’s work contains a sense of mystery and imagination especially when you look at his poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Although this poem is shorter than Raymond carvers work it still requires thought. This is because of his use of descriptive language in a way where he’s saying something without saying too much.
Raymond Carver’s minimalist writing style is starkly different from Flannery O’Connor’s rich, descriptive approach. In Carver’s “Cathedral,” the language is spare, with simple sentences that convey the complexities of the characters’ lives through dialogue and subtext. For example, when the narrator tries to describe a cathedral to a blind man, the lack of elaborate description emphasizes the communication gap between them. Contrast this with O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” where the narrative is laden with detailed descriptions and a strong sense of place, such as the way she paints the setting: “The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled.” O’Connor uses these details to foreshadow and build tension, leading to the story’s climactic moment.
Raymond Carver’s and Joyce Carol Oates writing takes on different styles several ways. Carver takes a pared-down style in “Cathedral,” focusing on minimalism and plain communication. He uses basic language to express a feeling of reality, focusing on everyday occurrences and allowing readers to draw deeper meanings from the interactions between people. For example, Carver’s descriptions are limited, but the deeper meaning is full with passion, such as when the blind guy and the narrator bond while painting a church. In comparison, Joyce Carol Oates “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” uses a more thorough and richly descriptive approach. Her writing is full of rich imagery, which adds tension and creates an exciting setting. The first scene, in which she explains Connie’s duality is an excellent example of her careful style, “Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home.” Oates use of rich descriptions draws readers into the characters inner and outside worlds, resulting in a deeper narrative setting. As a result, while Carver’s method is more specific , Oates approach is broader and more diverse.
The writing style of Raymond Carver in “Cathedral” is clear and simple compared to other writers whose work we have read this semester. In Carver’s stories you didn’t really have to do much to understand it because Carver makes it simple for the reader to understand the story unlike other stories in which you had to read it multiple times before you understand the story. Gabriel Garcia’s story ““The Most Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” on the other hand is more complex and requires you to imagine how things are happening in the story. You might also read over the story again in order to better understand the message that the writer is trying to show. Carver’s story don’t require much understanding as he makes it easier to understand, the only thing that was confusing was the ending of the story. At the end of the day, everybody has their own writing style.
Analyzing the writing of Raymond Carver and comparing it to another writer we’ve got studied this semester, we can examine distinct differences. Carver’s minimalist approach is clear in his story “Cathedral,” wherein he makes use of easy language and sparse descriptions to carry deep feelings and complicated subject matters. Raymond doesn’t leave readers to discover it on their own except for the ending in which he ends it abruptly, he holds their hand throughout the read. The mood in this story didn’t feel dark. Unlike The Handsomest Drowned Man the story we read at the start of the semester, this story has a lot of details and you need to have multiple reads in order to find the complete meaning of the story, it took me multiple read to find all of the details that I missed. This story was kind of gloomy especially when you read the beginning where the village seems like a deserted wasteland.
Raymond Carver’s writing style in “Cathedral” features simple tones yet deep character portrayals. He demonstrates a high level of skill in his dialogues, making them appear very natural and realistic. Through dialogue, he conveys information while also leaving gaps, allowing readers to infer the unspoken emotions and intentions between characters. His meticulous descriptions of dialogue and actions reveal the psychological states and emotional depths of the characters. This contrasts with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s style in “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” where he uses the villagers’ fantasies to enrich the narrative with multiple layers of reality. Carver focuses on concise, direct, and realistic depictions, while Marquez creates a world filled with magical and symbolic significance.
The writing style by Raymond Carver in “Cathedral” the author uses a very simple conversational and colloquial tone. Raymond Carver uses a conversational tone and diction to show the narrators character. The dialogue from the character is very vague, simple, mocking. Also that the wording of the conversation being very blunt and straightforward. In “My Daughter and Apple Pie” just by the title its very straightforward with not much meaning or leaving the reader to interpret anything else. In the first few lines “She serves me a piece of it a few minutes out the oven. A little steam rises from the slits on top. Even in the authors works of poetry he tells the reader exactly what’s happening. In contrast to author Gabriel Garica Marquez’s writing style in stories like “The Most Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” the author uses vibrant, descriptive, imaginative story telling. Garica uses imagery and magical realism describing the body and face of the drowned man and how his presence affected the villagers.
