Violent or Healing: An Exploration of the Role of Water in Raymond Carver’s Stories Anonymous College

The beautiful Pacific Northwest serves as a perfect backdrop for Raymond Carver’s stories, full of recurring symbolism, underlying themes, and significant motifs, most importantly the repeated theme of water. Just as water plays such a significant role in the identity, culture, and nature of the Pacific Northwest, Carver’s continued inclusion of the theme in his short stories gives it a similarly significant role, but one that does not necessarily hold the same meaning throughout each story. Water is mentioned in many different forms: melting ice, snow, rivers, rain, and even running water in a bath or a sink. Though the theme of water holds significance in Carver’s literature, the role it plays in the respective stories greatly differs. On one hand, in some instances it accompanies and represents violence, but at the same time in other stories, it also exists on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, representing health and healing.

There is almost a universal acceptance of the healing powers of water. Isak Dinesen once wrote, “the cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.” On one hand, this speaks to the seemingly endless forms of water that exist in nature that we experience every day, but it also cites...