The Student’s Wife by Raymond Carver
In The Student’s Wife by Raymond Carver we have the theme of longing, confinement, desperation, paralysis and powerlessness. Taken from his Will You Please Be Quiet, Please collection the story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator, however it does appear that the point of view of the narrator matches that of the main protagonist in the story, a woman called Nan. From the beginning of the story the reader also realises that Carver may be exploring the theme of paralysis (at least symbolically). Nan is asleep (not moving) and her husband Mike is besides her, reading. What is also interesting about the story is the fact that the setting for the story is in Nan and Mike’s apartment, that being indoors. Apart from Nan standing on the porch near the end of the story all the action is confined to the inside of the apartment. The benefit of this is that it heightens the sense of confinement (or paralysis) within the story. There is very little movement.
There are further instances in the story in whereby Carver may be exploring the idea or theme of confinement. Both Nan and Mike stretch themselves while in bed. The main point to try to understand regards this action is that they are in some ways restricted (they are in bed after all). Nan’s dream, of her sitting in the back of the boat, the space ‘so narrow it hurt my legs’, also suggests the idea of confinement or being restricted. Another incident in whereby there is a sense of confinement (and which also brings in the theme of longing) is when Nan goes through a list of things she likes and would like. This list is important as it highlights that Nan is in some ways confined to living how she does due to Mike’s job. It is also significant that Carver mentions that Nan wishes that Mike had a new suit. This is possible symbolism for another way of living for Mike. Nan longs for a change from her present life (or way of living).
There is a further example of longing when Nan asks Mike does he remember the time they stayed overnight on the Tilton River. They’d just got out of high school and Mike had caught a big trout. Though Mike remembers the time, he wishes that he didn’t because it reminds him of his half-baked ideas about life and art, but for Nan it is important because it is a time of hopes and aspirations, none of which have materialised. She still (as does Mike) longs for a different way of life, with the same hopes and aspirations and not the realities of the position she and Mike find themselves in, of moving every year because of Mike’s job.
The symbolism of Nan’s ‘Growing pains’ as Mike calls them is also important because Carver through their introduction may be highlighting that very little has changed for Nan since she was a child. Carver appears to be using Nan’s physical size to suggest (through symbolism) a sense of continued paralysis in Nan’s life. Carver uses symbolism again near the end of the story. He uses the sunrise that Nan is standing, looking at on the porch as symbolism for a new beginning, something that the reader already knows Nan longs for. The reader is also aware that Nan hasn’t seen many sunrises. This is significant because if the sunrise symbolises a new beginning, the fact that Nan has not seen many suggests that she has not had many new beginnings. In essence her life has not changed. Again this suggests the idea or paralysis.
The end of the story is also interesting because the reader, by Ann’s actions, realises how desperate she is. After she comes in from the porch she goes back into the bedroom and kneels down to pray. ‘God, will you help us, God?’ Such is Nana’s longing for a different kind of life she has resorted to praying, or relying on God to help her. She knows she is powerless herself to change both her and Mike’s life. What is also interesting at the end of the story is that Carver highlights the continued sense of confinement in Nana and Mike’s life. Just before Nan prays she looks at Mike and can see ‘He was knotted up in the center of the bed’. It may also be significant that Carver ends the story where it began. In Nan and Mike’s bedroom. It is also interesting that Mike (apart from briefly going to the kitchen) remains in the same place (in bed) throughout the story. Despite Nan’s desperation for a new life, there will be no change. Life for Nan and Mike is to remain the same. They will continue to move from school to school and apartment to apartment, Nan’s goal for a different, better life will not be achieved.
This short story contains nothing but lazy thoughts of a far more lazy mind. If you sleep during the day, you won’t sleep at night and these type of feelings you will generally get if you are lazy.
Nan sounds like someone who never had any dreams to achieve, just illusions. Carver made a big fuss about it, that’s all.
Thanks for the comment Vivian. You could be right. One of the great things about Carver’s stories is that they are open to interpretation. Each individual reader will see something different from the next reader. Which makes Carver’s stories all the more interesting.
Seems there is more than laziness going on here. It may be helpful to know that Carver’s first wife has to bear a lot with respect to his alcoholism and constant shifting of places in life while she held the jobs that supported his writing. This is all extraneous to the story, but illustrates how deferral of dreams for someone else or for family, or simply because it is difficult to shape life into a dream, that she feels stuck. Notably in her dream, she takes the cramped, restricted seat in the back so that he can sit in the front of the view where you would assume the view is better and he can talk to people. If there is laziness of mind it is a symptom?
After reading a story by Raymond Carver I always read your comment. Thank you very much for your wonderful reviews. In this story I think the last paragraph in your review will not be necessary for the open conclusion.
Thanks for the comment Lim and thank you for visiting the blog. I would agree with you. Should the reader seek an open conclusion to the story there is no need for the last paragraph of the review. My reason for including the last paragraph is that I felt the story had reached a conclusion and that Nan remained stuck or paralyzed by her circumstances.
Why, in the review, everything, I mean from the start, is taken as symbolist if, what about the thing-in-itself, the reality as it is? It looks a typical method of all (non-creative) critcism, being symbolistic.
Hi Kawish, but it’s not symbolism to note that there is confinement and restriction in the story, just as there is her deep seated restlessness and his need ultimately to be left alone even as they share the same bed. These are the things in themselves and called out from a close reading. It would be different if these were pages torn out of Carver’s journals and he said that he had trouble sleeping because his wife had trouble sleeping and you said that this was symbolic of ‘unfulfillment’ or the limits of suburban aspirations or what have you. In this case, Carver is the set designer, director, casting director and prop manager. So to read what he is arranging is very much, in my opinion, the ‘reality as it is’ that you seek, but the reality of the constructed story.
Why, in the review, everything, I mean from the start, is taken as symbolist if, what about the thing-in-itself, the reality as it is? It looks a typical method of all (non-creative) critcism, being symbolistic.
Thanks for the comment Kawish. That’s what I focus on. Themes and symbolism.
All interesting comments. Thanks for letting me read. I think her age is somewhat significant too, as she says, ”We’d just got out of high school. *You* hadn’t started to college,” as if she’s already been to college, and was his high school teacher. And of course, the title, The Student’s Wife. The focus on his half-baked ideas about life, where she seemed to admire them as perhaps she was older and saw a lot more life in him giving her a new lease, but clearly, both of them have never materialized any of these plans as you said. Also the feet rubbing and joint aches. I love this story, it’s depressingly beautiful. I wish I could pick Carver’s mind.
Thanks for the comment and insight Connor. It is a depressingly beautiful story. Like many of Carver’s stories. It really would be interesting to pick Carver’s mind. He had a wealth of ideas.
Man, this sounds so disturbing.
Poor Nan…
….. doesn’t the end…Mike’s sleeping position… the way he is described..minimally….indicate/suggest anything fatal…(jaws clenched/knotted up/desperate…)and young wife’s reaction…Carver opens up all possibilities… leaves the reader in suspended animation… his characters bare harsh existential truths in no uncertain terms… but still found wanting in categorical achievements… this is Carver’s Success Too…
Thanks for that insight R.S.
Yes, image does have a rigor mortis air to it– whiffs of mortality. That life is too short to put everything on hold …nice.
What about Mike? Poor guy’s just trying to go to bed….
„What about Mike? Poor guy’s just trying to go to bed…“
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Just my thought. And: Mrs Maryann Carver may not have been amused upon seeing this in print.
Why is the story titled ‘the student’s wife’ ?
The wife’s husband is a student in academia.
Hi Dermot! I was inspired by your interpretation, and I’ve recently adapted this short story into a short film. Check it out here if you have time! Thanks! vimeo.com/334491512
Hi Desmond. I really liked your film. It draws out the confusion that Nan feels better than I could have managed to do.
Ill reply to empty space to no one with all of my deepest thoughts. This story reminds me a bit of a book I read called “Clans of the Alphane Moon”. In this book, the male protagonist gets divorced by his wife because he maintains a lower end job but likes it. The wife says he is depressed and wont fight for a better job and a better life and is unsatisfied. In the end the protagonist asks who really is depressed here? The person who is content with their life and job or the person who sees everything as bad, broken and needing fixed? Who is to say? This story and the book I mentioned hit hard for me personally. For one person in a relationship to unload the burden of their discontentedness onto the other person as if they are some kind of happiness provider is cruel.
Thanks for that insight Maaattttt.
I appreciated your vision of the story, especially on some details that I had missed, and I would like to express my opinion.
In this short story we find one of the focal points of Carver’s fiction: the sense of emptiness and loss of the characters, always searching for something they cannot focus on and, therefore, describe.
The final sentence of the girl – “God, will you help us, God?” – highlights this inconvenience to which the characters cannot name, and which they are therefore unable to face and resolve. In particular, this short story leaves to us the work to understand this inconvenience, to bridge the abyss that has formed between the two lovers. This research is entrusted to the reader in a forced way, as the two protagonists, despite conversing, want to keep quiet, they don’t want to speak (particularly the boy), and so remain in this state of quiet, in a state of ambiguous oscillation between speech and silence. The title of the collection, where this short story is contained, is not coincidentally Will You Please Be Quiet, to highlight this incommunicability that Carver’s characters are forced to experience.
Thanks for that insight Vincenzo.