Raymond Carver: Eine Studie zum 'minimalen' Wandel in der Grundstimmung seiner Kurzgeschichten ab "Cathedral"

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GRIN Verlag, 2007 - Biography & Autobiography - 28 pages
Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2005 im Fachbereich Amerikanistik - Literatur, Note: 1,3, Universität Hamburg (IAA), Veranstaltung: Postmoderne/Neorealismus II (Hauptseminar), 9 Quellen im Literaturverzeichnis, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Anhand der Geschichtensammlung Cathedral (1983) lässt sich recht gut zeigen, welchen Wandel Carvers Geschichten insbesondere im Vergleich zu seinem vorigen Buch What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981)1 durchgemacht haben. Im späteren Band, Cathedral, sind sowohl Geschichten, die den vertrauten und düsteren Charakter der früheren Kurzgeschichten beibehalten, als auch solche, die sozusagen ein "neues" positiveres Format aufweisen, das es gilt zu untersuchen. Mit Cathedral hat Carver meines Erachtens eine stilistische Bandbreite erreicht, die weit über den Minimalismus früherer Tage hinausgeht. Diese Arbeit ist zweigeteilt. Sie wird zunächst die Stimmung der Carver-Geschichten generell analysieren und auf die Lebenssituation der Charaktere zurückführen, wobei die Geschichte "Preservation" näher beleuchtet werden soll, welche ich als exemplarisch für den düsteren Ton und die Passivität der Charaktere in Carvers Geschichten ansehe. Im zweiten Teil wird besagter Wandel Carvers anhand der beiden inhaltsverwandten Geschichten "The Bath" und "A Small, Good Thing", die aus unterschiedlichen Schaffensperioden Carvers stammen, näher beleuchtet. Den Anspruch einer "in depth"-Analyse der genannten Fragestellung kann diese Arbeit nicht erheben, da dies den Rahmen sprengen würde. An vielen Stellen kann deswegen bedauerlicherweise nur an der Oberfläche gekratzt werden. Jedoch ist dieses Thema so ergiebig, dass auch eine unvollständige Analyse, wie die gegenwärtige, bereits zu interessanten Ergebnissen führen wird und eventuell Anstoß für weitere Analysen in diese Richtung geben kann.
 

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Page 13 - She was a mother and thirty-three years old, and it seemed to her that everyone, especially someone the baker's age — a man old enough to be her father — must have children who'd gone through this special time of cakes and birthday parties. There must be that between them, she thought. But he was abrupt with her, not rude, just abrupt.
Page 16 - Smell this," the baker said, breaking open a dark loaf. "It's a heavy bread, but rich." They smelled it, then he had them taste it. It had the taste of molasses and coarse grains. They listened to him. They ate what they could. They swallowed the dark bread. It was like daylight under the fluorescent trays of light. They talked on into the early morning, the high pale cast of light in the windows, and they did not tKink of leaving.
Page 7 - That goddamn sofa! As far as she was concerned, she didn't even want to sit on it again. She couldn't imagine them ever having lain down there in the past to make love.
Page 11 - I'd never done with any other stories. When the book was put together and in the hands of my publisher, I didn't write anything at all for six months. And then the first story I wrote was "Cathedral," which I feel is totally different in conception and execution from any stories that have come before. I suppose it reflects a change in my life as much as it does in my way of writing. When I wrote "Cathedral...
Page 12 - A Small Good Thing" (in Cathedral) with the earlier version, "The Bath," which appeared in What We Talk About. The differences between the two versions are clearly fundamental. RC: Certainly there's a lot more optimism in "A Small Good Thing." In my own mind I consider them to be really two entirely different stories, not just different versions of the same story; it's hard to even look on them as coming from the same source. I went back to that one, as well as several others, because I felt there...
Page 11 - ... its worst, seems to require a near-death capitulation before its sufferers will surrender and move toward recovery. In Ray's own case he was hospitalized twice, the last time near kidney and liver failure. He was told on this occasion that he would certainly die, and soon, if he continued to drink. Previous to his collapse, Ray had gone drunk to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and after his release from the hospital he'd gone to Duffy's, a treatment center in northern California within sight of...
Page 17 - Carver provides here in essence an answer to the failures his characters have been subject to all along, failures of characters who, in stories in all of his books, talk and listen with characteristically poor results.
Page 6 - Carver's characters may be the first in American working-class literature who are never shown on the job.

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