Free Raymond Carver's Writing Journey Essay Sample

Raymond Carver is a renowned short story writer and poet in the United States of America. He started writing while living in California when he was still young and, eventually, prospered with time. He even won awards due to his writing skills. Throughout his writing career, his works were loved by many readers and are considered to be among the best. This is evident through the awards he won throughout his career. Just like any other person, he had mentors who inspired and greatly influenced his writing career. This is seen through the themes and tones that he used in his work. Great writers inspired him, among which was Ernest Hemingway.

 
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The themes that he discussed most of the time during his writing were based on his personal life's experiences. Carver's work moves around the theme of alcoholism and how to overcome it. This is mainly because he had an alcoholism problem that he had tried overcoming for many years but had not been able to do it. He even notes that he would probably have passed away at forty if he had not stopped drinking. His work, therefore, was a times based on these facts so as to try and solve this persisting problem. This is also largely evident in the works of Hemingway. In his work, he is seen writing about the effects of a father dying and what his children might inherit from him. This was mostly because he had lost his father at the early age of fourteen years. After his father's death, he had continued fishing because while his father was still alive, they fished together. Carver, through his admiration for Hemingway's style of writing, had been greatly influenced in his career and adapted this style of writing.

The main reason as to why writers write their pieces based on personal life experiences is due to the fact that emotion is easily transferable to the reader. This implies that in the course of writing the short story, for example, the writer is able to look back and capture the exact emotion at a particular instant. As a result, it is fiction based on reality. These types of writings keep the readers' anxious waiting for the next piece. This is because they already realize that the author's piece is a piece that they can connect with emotionally. Hemingway had successfully used this tactic in presentation of his writings. Raymond Carver had been watching his progress closely, and to him, he was like a young child's role model. Hugely driven by the success of his hero, he was able to completely get influenced and he wrote his pieces based on his every day's encounters. As a result, he became very successful and his work has been awarded over and over again.

In the s Hemingway's 'Cat in the Rain', this piece of work serves as a huge basis of the message and theme being passed on by Carver in his work 'The Student's wife'. In Hemingway's work, he uses idea of a woman who is longing to have a cat to play around with and keep her company. However, this is only symbolic. This is because the deeper meaning of her sentiments is her urge and need for a baby. The phrases that Hemingway uses are an indication of the woman's unfulfilled desires. The same is echoed in Raymond Carver's story, 'The Student's wife.' This is displayed as we are told of how the woman wishes for many things in her marriage that her husband does not seem to approve. She wishes to buy new clothes all the time, spend some alone time in the bed with her husband, both morning and evening, and she wishes she could fly every once in a while. This is a complete influence on the side of Raymond Carver by Ernest Hemingway. Due to his liking for Hemingway's style, he reiterated this same theme in his work.

In the story 'Will You be Quiet Please' by Raymond Carver, this title and the recurrent wordings in it are largely influenced by Hemingway's 'Hills like White Elephants.' In Hemingway's story he uses the phrase 'will you please stop talking' and will you please be quiet please. This could have greatly influenced the use of the same wordings and idea by Carver in his work later on. In Hemingway's work, the characters in the story are drinking and sharing out the problems that they are currently facing. On the other hand, in Carver's work there is a lot of action and loudness as the characters drink. In this story, the end solution of everything that they are going through is sex for emotional comfort. The same case applies to the 'Hills like White Elephants.' In the end, the women who go gambling lose their belongings to muggers and, eventually, on reaching home, they want to have sex for emotional consolation. This is a clear indication of the influence that the storyline of Hemingway's story had on Raymond Carver's storyline.

In an interview with Raymond Carver, he admitted that his best short story of all time was 'Hills like White Elephants' by Ernest Hemingway. He added that any writer was bound to learn a lot of writing skills from this short story. This is an indication that he was greatly influenced by the style and entire writing skills of Hemingway.

The two authors are known for their use of minimalism as a style. This is a situation whereby the authors do not give an in depth description throughout their work. This is because their intention is to create a spicy outlook of their work. This is also applied to create suspense and anxiety. This will in turn make the readers of their work have the inner urge to read more so as to clearly understand the entire concept of the work that the author is describing. Due to the fact that Hemingway is the older author, it is evident that Craver was influenced by his work so as to finally decide to use the same style in his work. The reason for this could have been the realization that the work of Hemingway was eye-catching and was also selling at a fast rate.

During the interviews that were carried out on Raymond Carver, he confirmed that he is compared to Hemingway in their styles of writing. In response to this question, he confirmed this to be true. He added that when he was younger, he read a lot of Hemingway's work. As a result, he became attached to his style of writing. This resulted in his use of these styles in his work. The influence that the pieces of Hemingway had on Carver was so great that he decided to implement these influences in his own work.

Hemingway wrote a lot about love and sex. In his short stories, he elaborated a lot on sex and also mentioned love in his work. His intense of elaboration is probably what kept readers with the urge to read more and more of their books. As a result, Carver followed in his footsteps and mainly dealt with issues concerning love. He even said that this was a topic that was so hard to evade. As a result, people became very interested in his explanations about love and all the drama. Due to the fact that everyone has had a chance to love or be loved, his work largely connected with it. His short stories' What We Talk about When We Talk about Love' was the complete justice to these essentials matters of the heart. It became a best seller as people all over the globe were curios to discover the contents of these stories. His subsequent short stories and poems were now based on these love matters. Indulging into writing about love is an influence that Carver would hugely attribute to Hemingway. This was a positive influence on Carver as this soon became his identity in the filed of writing. 

Generally, the influence on Raymond Carver by Ernest Hemingway was highly beneficial to both the writer and his readers. This influence was a huge stepping stone for Carver as he easily established a name for himself among other writers. These influences are a huge part of the achievements and recognition that Carver has received over the years. Carver's work has managed to be classified among America's Best Short Stories over the years. Therefore, this is a lesson to everyone in their various career paths. Choosing the best role model is very important in ensuring success in everything that we may undertake to do.

The role models that one chooses are the pillars of the successes that we intend to achieve. This is because these are the people who directly influence the decisions that one makes in life always. It is, therefore, our sole responsibility to choose reliable mentors.

 

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