In his story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, Raymond Carver expresses his idea of ​​love through his characters and storyline. After reading this story, I am able to relate a type of love to each character in the story. Love is taken and given in different ways, such as affection, gifts, affirmation, or physical time. Carver uses alcohol in his story to start the conversation about love and also end the conversation about love. The sun is also used to symbolize the coming and going of happiness and love throughout the story. There are three types of love that can be learned from this story: cynical love, spiritual love, unconditional love, and young love. The title of the story, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” gives us a good overview of the main subject of the story. Looking at the title we can see that we are not only talking about what it means to love in general, but also what the author truly believes to be the meaning of love. Raymond Carver defines different degrees of various forms of love through the symbolism of the characters and plot of the story. As I began reading the story, I noticed the importance of the couples drinking gin and the presence of the sun. In their discussion about love, Mel, Terri, Laura and Nick consume large amounts of alcohol. Their confusion becomes even greater as they consume more and more alcohol, making it even more difficult for them to define what love is. As the conversation becomes more and more lively, it also becomes more and more incoherent and unclear. Drinking also serves as a ritual in this story. The friends got together to have a good time and have an open discussion about love, as well as to share their personal experience...... middle of paper ...... they love each other too. You know what kind of love I'm talking about now. Physical love, that impulse that pulls you toward someone special, as well as love of the other person's being, of their essence, so to speak” (Carver 853). Laura and Nick are pretty sure they know what the true meaning of love is. They do not specifically define love, however, they express it by holding hands and smiling at each other. Each couple has their own reasons for believing that they loved, but they cannot clearly express why. The dialogue that takes place between Laura, Nick, Mel and Terri says a lot about their perception of love. For example, the way the characters interact with each other not only helps the reader understand the purpose of the author's essay, but also suggests that there is a relationship between the story and intellectual love , spiritual and sensual..