Bouchard, Jennifer. "Literary Contexts in Short Stories: Raymond Carver's "Where I'm Calling From."Literary Contexts in Short Stories: Raymond Carver's 'Where I'm Calling From'(2008): 1.Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 19 Apr. 2010.

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Literary Contexts in Short Stories: Raymond Carver's "Where I'm Calling From"

Published in "The New Yorker" in 1983, the short story "Where I'm Calling From" by Raymond Carver focuses on characters that are struggling with alcoholism. Told from the perspective of one of the rehab patients, Carver provides a bird's eye view of the isolation and fear associated with recovery.

Author Supplied Keywords: Alcoholism; Chimney Sweep; Drunk; Drying out; Marriage; Seizure

Plot Synopsis

In the short story,"Where I'm Calling From," Raymond Carver provides a bird's eye view of life at an alcohol treatment center. Carver's narrator affects a matter-of-fact but sincere voice. He is an Average Joe except that he is in rehab "drying out" (Carver 581). The narrator's story begins with a description of the other people in the rehab center, focusing mainly on the story of Joe Penny with whom he is currently sitting on the front porch of Frank Martin's facility.

Through his description of J.P. and the other characters, the narrator reveals elements of himself even before he talks about himself and how he ended up in rehab directly. J.P. has the shakes; the narrator has a jerk in his shoulder. He explains how a "big fat guy" they call Tiny had a seizure after two weeks in rehab. Tiny had nicked his face shaving that morning but, "Just about everybody at Frank Martin's has nicks on his face" (Carver 582). The narrator describes how Tiny was sitting at breakfast telling old drinking stories and making everybody laugh when all of a sudden he was on the floor "heels drumming the linoleum" (582). Tiny's seizure is significant because the narrator fears that what happened to Tiny will happen to him.

As the narrator and J.P. sit on the porch, J.P. recounts his life story. When he was a child, he fell in a well and remained there terrified until his father came with a rope and rescued him. When he finished high school, he fell for a young woman chimney sweep and discovered he wanted to be one too. Eventually J.P. and the woman got married, had children and J.P joined the family chimney sweep business. J.P. recounts his happiness during this time but he nonetheless began to drink more and more until he was drinking all day long. J.P. then pauses in his story but the narrator encourages him to go on as it serves as a good distraction from the narrator's own problems. J.P. talks about how he and his wife fought all of the time and eventually she started seeing someone else. Once he got arrested for drunk-driving, which prevented him from driving his work truck, he decided to enter Frank Martin's facility. The narrator then says that everyone at Frank Martin's is there by choice.

The narrator then recalls his second entrance into Frank Martin's and reveals that he was drunk and said goodbye to his girlfriend who was also drunk. He remembers that as he was getting settled in, he saw two big guys drag J.P. into Frank Martin's by force. He realizes that they must have been his father-in-law and brother-in-law.

While the narrator and J.P. are sitting on the porch, Frank Martin comes outside to smoke his cigar. He points out that Jack London lived nearby and that alcohol killed him. He warns them that London was a great man but even he "couldn't handle the stuff" (Carver 588). Before going inside, Frank Martin tells them that he can help them if they let him. J.P. tells the narrator that Frank Martin makes him feel like a bug and that he wishes he had a name like Jack London.

The narrator remembers when his first wife brought him to Frank Martin's the first time and then just six months later when his girlfriend brought him to Frank Martin's for the second time. He mentions that she has a "mouthy teen-age son" and that she recently got a bad diagnosis from a Pap Smear (588). He and his girlfriend have not spoken since she dropped him off. The next day, which is New Year's Eve, the narrator calls his wife, rather than his girlfriend, but there is no answer.

J.P.'s wife comes to visit him the next day and the narrator has a flashback of his own failed marriage, from when he and his wife were happy newlyweds. He wants to connect with her again, but he does not know what to say or how to tell her where he is calling from; the reader is left with the image of the narrator removing change from his pocket.

Symbols & Motifs

In telling J.P.'s story, the narrator's voice switches back and forth from 'I' to 'We' to remind the reader where the narrator is coming from; the narrator is not one of us, he is one of them: "Like the rest of us at Frank Martin's, J.P. is first and foremost a drunk" (Carver 581). The narrator empathizes with J.P. because he is like him.

The narrator relays the events of J.P.'s life story and how he ended up at Frank Martin's. He begins with the time when J.P. fell in a well as a child. This is an apt metaphor for hitting rock bottom; J.P.'s fears while waiting for help are expressed. J.P. then tells the narrator how he met his wife and found a career as a chimney sweep. His life was good, but for some reason, he began drinking more. The narrator interrupts this story about J.P. asking rhetorically, "who knows why we do what we do?" then returns to his story (Carver 585). These types of interruptions in narrative reveal more about the narrator of the story than the person he is talking about.

After relaying J.P.'s story, the narrator jumps back into the "I" voice and shares some background on how he ended up at Frank Martin's two times. He depicts the drive to Frank Martin's with his girlfriend and how they drank champagne on the ride there (Carver 589). He and his girlfriend haven't talked since he got to Frank Martin's and it seems that neither one of them can understand what the other is going through. The narrator assumes his "we" voice when he talks about J.P, further revealing his connection to his fellow drunks. They understand one another; they understand how it can happen, how people can slip. When talking about his past relationships, he must revert back to the "I" voice because he is alone in the world of memory.

The narrator also references the Jack London story, "To Build a Fire"; a survival story of man against nature. He recalls how the London character is almost able to get a fire going before it goes out and he ultimately loses against nature (594). Through this reference, the narrator is able to reveal his fear of failure without admitting it directly.

Like Jack London, and Tiny and J.P., the narrator's story is one of survival but also one of love and longing. The title suggests the narrator's attempt to explain what he is going through. His memories of marriage, his depiction of his girlfriend, his hesitation of which woman to call for support, all contribute to his experience. His memories and observations of the world reveal his inner battles and his inability to find a comfortable place in the world.

Historical Context

One June 2, 1977, after ten years of excessive drinking, Raymond Carver quit. He admitted to being out of control and recognized that drinking had ruined his health, family and writing (Luce). In the year before he quit, Carver's wife took their children and left him and he was hospitalized four times for alcoholism (Luce). After he quit, Carver credited Alcoholics Anonymous for helping him and began a fresh start; what he called his "other life" (Luce).

In the three years after Carver got sober, he wrote and published about 12 new stories dealing with marriages falling apart and the painful struggles of alcoholism, including "Where I'm Calling From" (Luce). Carver and his wife did get back together for a time, but the two eventually separated and divorced in the 1982 (Luce). In the meantime, Carver had met the poet Tess Gallagher and the two became a pair for the remainder of his life.

Carver admitted that although he had moved past his dreary life as an alcoholic: "In this second life, this post-drinking life, I still retain a certain sense of pessimism" (Luce). The ending of "Where I'm Calling From" hints at this. While there is a sense of hope, the narrator is left in limbo; unsure of who he will reach out to and unsure if that person will reach back or if he will be left alone.

Societal Context

Raymond Carver's writing is considered an offshoot of American realism (Robinson). The focus of his stories is on ordinary people living ordinary lives that are often disrupted by marital problems, alcoholism, and dissatisfying jobs (Robinson). Tom Luce describes Carver's characters as living "unheroic lives, most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible" (Luce). The subject matter of Carver's work reflects the lives of real people living in the 1970s and 80s.

Although Carver himself did get divorced, the characters in his stories never quite get to that point. According to Marilynne Robinson, Carver demonstrates marriage as, "desperately vulnerable to derangement and bad luck, but always precious in itself, its lost pleasures always loyally remembered" (Robinson). In "Where I'm Calling From," the narrator is estranged from his wife but still dependent on her, and at the end of the day, she is the one he tries to call.

Religious Context

"Where I'm Calling From" does not have a specific religious context.

Scientific & Technological Context

"Where I'm Calling From" does not have a specific scientific or technological context.

Biographical Context

Raymond Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon in 1938 to a working class family (Goia and Gwynn). He spent most of his childhood in Yakima, Washington where his father worked as a sawmill worker (Goia and Gwynn). Carver married young and had two children. To support his family, Carver worked at a lumber mill and other manual labor jobs including picking tulips and cleaning toilets ("Rough Crossings"). Many of Carver's characters reflect the struggling working class people he spent most of his life around.

Carver attended Chico State College for a time where he studied with famed writer John Gardner. Carver then attended Humboldt State College (now University of California, Humboldt) where he graduated in 1963 (Goia and Gwynn). He also participated in the Writers' Workshop of the University of Iowa but was unable to finish and had to return to California due to family financial problems (Goia and Gwynn).

In 1967, the author met Gordon Lish, the editor at Esquire and then Knopf, who would eventually publish many of Carver's stories and helped establish his place in the literary world ("Rough Crossings"). Carver became known as a minimalist (although Carver did not like the term) and it appears that Lish may have been more responsible for Carver's minimalist stories than Carver himself ("Rough Crossings"). In 1968 he published a collection of poems "Near Klamath" (Goia and Gwynn). Throughout the 1970s, Carver taught at a series of universities for brief periods but marital problems and struggles with alcoholism flanked his success. In 1977, Carver quit drinking, a feat he considered to be his greatest accomplishment (Goia and Gwynn). He also published his first collection of short stories, "Will You Be Quiet, Please?" that same year; the collection was nominated for a National Book Award ("Rough Crossing"). Carver divorced his first wife and received a full time teaching appointment at Syracuse University in 1980 (Goia and Gwynn).

Carver published another collection of short stories, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," in 1981. Two years later he received the Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award, which allowed him to devote all of his time to writing (Goia and Gwynn). The author moved back to Washington and married his longtime girlfriend, poet Tess Gallagher, in 1988 (Goia and Gwynn). Unfortunately, Carver died the same year due to lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking. His last story, "Errand," won the O. Henry Award later that year ("Rough Crossings").

Complementary Texts

"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Ernest Hemingway

"Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville

"Jesus' Son" by Denis Johnson

"Stories of Anton Chekhov" by Anton Chekhov

"The Night in Question: Stories" by Tobias Wolff

"The Winter of Our Discontent" by John Steinbeck

"To Build a Fire" by Jack London

Discussion Questions

1.  What is the role of the narrator in this story?

2.  What is the tone of the story?

3.  How does the setting of the story affect the mood? What time of year is it?

4.  What is the significance of Tiny's seizure for both the narrator and Tiny himself?

5.  Why did Frank Martin mention the fact that Jack London lived nearby?

6.  Compare and contrast the narrator to J.P. Who seems more likely to recover?

7.  How would you describe the atmosphere at Frank Martin's?

8.  What are some of the other patients like? What do they talk about?

9.  How would you describe the ending of the story?

10. What are the main themes of the story?

Essay Ideas

1.  Describe and analyze Carver's literary style. Focus on his minimalist descriptions, the structure of his narrative and the voice of the narrator of "Where I'm Calling From."

2.  Discuss the voice of the narrator and how he uses the story of J.P. to reveal his own situations and problems.