Setting

Physical setting

The events described in the short story “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” by Raymond Carver take place in Albuquerque, New Mexico (p. 111, l. 6). The conversation between the four main characters takes place in Mel and Terri’s kitchen: 

The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink (…) There was an ice bucket on the table. The gin and the tonic water kept going around… (p. 111, ll. 3-9)

Other locations are mentioned in Mel and Terri’s flashbacks. For example, when Mel talks about being threatened by Ed, he describes the hospital parking lot: “ ‘It’d be dark out there in the parking lot, and I’d break into a sweat before I could even get to my car. I never knew if he was going to come up out of the shrubbery or from behind a ...