The Life and Work of Raymond Carver Essay examples -- Biography Biogra

The Life and Work of Raymond CarverIn private desperation, Raymond Carvers characters struggle through their lives,knowing, with occasional clarity, that the good life they had once hoped would beachieved through hard work will not take about. In many ways, Carvers life was the model for all of his characters. Married to Maryann Burk on June 7th, 1957, at nineteen, and having two children by October of 1958, the Carvers life was decided for years to come. primordial on, Carver felt, along with his wife, that hard work would take care of closely everything. We thought we could do it all, he said in iodinness interview, We were little but we thought that if we kept working, if we did the right things, the right things would happen (Gentry 123). someplace in the middle of this life of dead end jobs and child raising, he realized, very much like one of his characters, that things would not change. He recounts one of the strongest of these moments in his essay on writing influence s, Fires. On a Saturday good afternoon in the early 1960s, when Carver was a student at the University of Iowa, he was doing chores and taking care of their two children, Christine and Vance. The children were with some of their friends, at a birthday party, Carver was not sure--he often admitted to having a very poor memory.He was at the laundromat washing clothes and, at this point in the essay, waiting for adryer When and if one of the dryers ever stopped, I think to rush over to it with my shopping basket of damp clothes. Understand, Id been hanging nearly in the laundromat for thirty minutes or so with this basket of clothes, waiting my chance. Id already missed out on a cou... ... grew and receive reprieves in life that most do not encounter. Anything can happen, he tells us. He once said, Its strange. You never start out life with the use of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic or a cheat and a thief. Or a liar (Gentry 38). At one time Carver was all of these. If we can learn one thing, it is that zero is set in stone. Change is the only sure thing. Works Cited Carver, Raymond. Fires. bran-new York Vintage-Random House, 1989. Gentry, Marshall Bruce, and William L. Stull, eds. Conversations With Raymond Carver. Jackson UP of Mississippi, 1990. Halpert, Sam, ed. ...when we talk about Raymond Carver. Layton Gibbs Smith, 1991. Helprin, Mark, ed. The Best American Short Stories 1988. Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1988.