Essay Options for Where I'm Calling From
One: The War Between the Ego and Empathy in Where I’m Calling From
In page one, profile someone who suffers “the type of swollen ego that results in solipsism and isolation from sanity, maturity, and the human race.” Then in your second page, profile someone who embodies the “sweet grace of empathy” and show how this person’s empathy connects him or her to others.
Then using an appropriate paragraph transition such as "Similarly" or "Likewise," you might start your thesis paragraph this way:
The above characters are antithetical to each other. Similarly, the stories pit characters at war between their egos and the liberation of empathy. Egotism in the stories (choose no fewer than 3) of Raymond Carver has grave consequences, which include _______________________, _________________________, ________________________, and ____________________________. In contrast, empathy has a healing effect on the downtrodden evidenced by _________________________, _______________________, __________________________, and ______________________________.
Your body paragraphs will correspond to the components you use to fill in the above blanks. Your conclusion will be one sentence, a brief, dramatic restatement of your thesis. Your final page, your Works Cited page, will show the sources you used from Where I’m Calling From, from my blog, from interviews, or from other helpful sources you find. Your Works Cited page and manuscript must conform to MLA format. Be sure to make your own catchy, creative title.
Option #2: Redemptive and Misguided Love
In a 5-page essay, contrast misguided love (“What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” “Feathers,” “Elephant”) and redemptive love (“A Small, Good Thing” and “Cathedral”) in the aforementioned stories.
Option #3: Symbiosis
In a 5-page essay explain the meaning of symbiosis or unhealthy mutual dependence in “Feathers” and “Elephant.” Before your comparison of the two stories, write a one-page introduction about an unhealthy symbiotic you’ve observed from your personal experience.
Option #4: The Chimera
Compare Mel McGuiness’ chimera from “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” with the chimera that afflicts the couple in “Feathers.” Before you compare the chimeras from the two stories, begin with a one-page introduction in which you describe a chimera that once afflicted you or someone else you know.
Option #5: Solipsism
In 1 or 2 pages, profile someone you know who descended into the private hell of solipsism. Then compare in 3 or 4 pages the solipsism evident in Mel from "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" and the narrator (before his transformation) in "Cathedral."
Option #6: The Disaffected
In a page, profile someone you know who is disaffected. Then analyze the causes and effects of the disaffected characters in "Cathedral" and "Feathers."
Some Research Links
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Symbiosis According to Erich Fromm
Symbiosis and the Fear of Freedom
David Foster Wallace and Solipsism
Introduction to Story:
Mel suffers from self-certitude or rectitude, the conviction of that he is
right, which is a drug clouding his powers of reason and his ability to see the
truth. As a result of his love for hearing the sound of his own bloviating
voice and the certitude that his voice affords him, Mel thinks he knows the
“higher truth” of love. But to the contrary, he is delusional in his
orientation toward love, both in his ideas and his actions. In fact, the story
pits Mel’s delusion of love, an oversimplification rooted in idealism, with the
reality of love, a messy tangle of complexities and contradictions that rebel
against Mel’s easy truisms and aphorisms about love.
Mel
believes in idealized love, which ironically is a standard of love he fails
miserably, while the story shows there are dozens of types of love, which defy
easy classification:
1.
chimera love
2.
chivalry love
(heroic or selfless or altruistic love)
3.
honeymoon or infatuation
love
4.
platonic love
5.
demonic love (the
underbelly of obsessed love)
6.
Mel’s self-love
or narcissism
Part Two. Reading Questions
1. What ways does Mel represent the kind of egotism that precludes understanding, sympathy, and empathy? This cardiologist knows nothing about the real heart because he’s obsessed with the hearing the sound of his own voice, pontificating, bloviating, and bullying his opinions and higher truths over others. His boastful pride compels him to dominate all discussions. He is, to use modern parlance, a know-it-all. Even his theology studies render him ignorant about spiritual matters. He worships his Ego and Smug Self-Certitude more than he cares about love in the real world.
2. What does the title suggest about the story’s theme? When we talk about love, we talk about everything BUT love. He who talks about love knows nothing about love. Why? Because in part love is not intellectual. Nor is it imposing opinions over others.
3. Why does love so often result in hate and violence? Terri discusses her previous man Ed on page 170. You’re vulnerable to be betrayed on the deepest level. You’ve stuck your emotions on the table and are in a position to get hurt resulting in rage and sometimes violence. Once you’re in a relationship so deeply, it’s hard to escape so sometimes you feel cornered and this is where abuse occurs. Even though Mel doesn’t want to admit it, often love can go awry, turn into a passion gone wrong. Terri knows this from experience. Love can be the rich custard flan tres leche caramel or love can curdle into rancid chunks of cottage cheese. Mel wants a tidy theory about love that comforts him, but he is embracing a mythic over simplification of love, not the truth. In truth, love has a dark demonic side. Most violent crimes are crimes of passion.
4. What evidence is there that Mel is a narcissist completely ignorant of love? He says after arguing with Terri about love, “That man tried to kill me.” He makes every conversation about himself, rather than coming to an understanding. See page 171.
5. What stage of love is the narrator Nick in with his woman Laura? Eros, honeymoon, infatuation. See page 172. His love is untested because at this stage it’s an “easy love.” See page 174. Most Americans have an infantile notion of love as being that first stage in which love is a giant goody box. Whenever you want a goody, you reach into the goody box until the goodies are gone and then you get a new goody box.
6. What is Mel’s obsession? Love. He always turns the subject toward love? Why? Because he hungers for a kind of ideal love that will ameliorate his raging egotism. He knows deep down something is wrong with him but his ego prevents him from laying it out on the table. Mel’s hunger for love is noble and true and authentic but his quest for love, finding a theory instead of love’s reality, is MISGUIDED and therefore doomed to fail. The more Mel searches for the perfect theory of love, the lonelier he becomes and this makes him hunger for love all the more. Thus Mel is trapped in a vicious cycle.
7. How does Mel respond to Terry’s plea for empathy and understanding on page 172? He’s supremely unconcerned with her needs, only his need to be right.
8. Why is Mel in part insecure or threatened by Ed’s demonic love? Because Ed was willing to die for love, something Mel can’t do because Mel cannot let go and lose control. His relationships must be very controlled due to his insecurities.
9. How does Mel’s immature character force Terry to act? Like a mother. Mamma love. Too many women are mammas for their men. See page 175 as Terry assuages Mel’s insecure ego. Too many men are trapped in Mamma Love. They become helpless cripples nestling in the Womb of a relationship that renders them infants forever and ever.
10. What journey are the characters embarking on? An exploration of love without defenses, without preconceptions. The alcohol is like a truth serum and they unshed their defenses and only when they have been reduced to a tabula rasa or blank slate can they see love in a new way. See page 176. A “forbidden” journey.
11. Where does Mel show some humanity and humility? He expresses self-doubt and concedes that maybe Terri was right about love going bad. Yes, love curdles, goes rank. See page 176.
12. What is Mel searching for on page 177. Permanence and transcendence. These are nice qualities of love, but they are absolutes and ideals and suggest a man who is more in love with the IDEA of love more than love itself.
13. What makes Mel an interesting character? He can long for a “higher love” but be full of a serpent’s spit, venom, and hate. See page 178.
14. What is one of Mel’s chief regrets? He never followed his passion, food. He probably became a doctor for status and now he feels compromised as a human being and dreams for some kind of fantasy love, an ideal love. See page 180 where Mel longs for chivalry. Chivalry is just a mask, a form of “armor” that prevents Mel from getting his hands dirty in life and facing his demons. See page 181.
15. What if anything is profound about the story’s ending?
Part Three. What 10 Things Should Mel Do to be a Happier, More Loving Person?
1. He needs to take a “chill pill,” that is, learn to relax. He gets too worked up over things and as a result he becomes blind to his anger, egotism and obnoxiousness.
2. He needs to become a better listener, listen more, talk less.
3. He needs to learn to accept himself. He appears to be consumed by self-hatred. Why? Because he demands a perfect love from himself, an ideal life and he knows he’s fallen short. Worse, he does nothing to close the gap between his behavior and his so-called higher ideals. He is frustrated with himself and he lashes out on others.
4. He needs to accept the demonic in others and himself in order to be less demonic. People who don’t acknowledge their inner demons are more dangerous than those who don’t.
5. He needs to open his mind to definitions of love that are less ideal than his own. Perhaps he should incorporate a “dirty hands” philosophy.
6. He needs to confront and acknowledge his insecurities rather than being in denial about them as he rages on Terry.
7. He needs to see how he treats others, a sign of maturity, and maybe he’ll act more loving instead of talking about love all the time.
8. He needs to realize his own cowardice and egotism have brought him frustration and unhappiness instead of blaming others.
9. He needs to develop the courage to be honest when he’s sober, not just when he’s drunk.
10. He needs to learn how to have conversations with people rather than lecturing people.
Part Four. Filling in your mapping components by answering a key question.
Egotism in the stories (choose no fewer than 3) of Raymond Carver has grave consequences, which include _______________________, _________________________, ________________________, and ____________________________. In contrast, empathy has a healing effect on the downtrodden evidenced by _________________________, _______________________, __________________________, and ______________________________.
Two Important Questions: Your Answers Will Outline Your Essay Number 1
Question One. What are the dangerous consequences of Mel’s egotism?
1. Mel is obsessed with being right in his theory of love more than he is interested in connecting with people by listening to them and empathizing with them and making compromises with them.
2. Mel is more interested in the idea of love, which assures his ego, than he is with real love, a complex beast that threatens his ego. Real love isn’t as safe as idealized love. Abstractions about love are just theories, stale formulas relegated to effete college professors. Abstractions don’t cut it in the real world. People tell me you can read parenting books until the cows come home, but until you parent a child, you know nothing about parenting. Mel can talk about love until he’s blue in the face, but until he really loves, he is an ignoramus about love.
3. Mel’s egotism has blinded him from a painful fact. He doesn’t have conversations with people. He talks down and lectures to them. This disconnects him and pushes him into the world of solipsism in which he becomes the only reality.
4. Solipsism, failing to connect with others, is a form of insanity. The telling signs of solipsism are self-pity, resentment, and narcissism (you’re the only one who matters, your suffering is worse than everyone else’s, your grievances are more compelling to everyone else’s). Tell the students about the doctor whose wife left him and the student who never dated after 20 years. These are two examples of people who are withdrawn into themselves and cannot connect with the outside world and as such are insane.
Question Two: What are the healing effects of empathy?
1. Empathy, the ability to stand in someone else’s shoes, is liberation and “a vacation” from the prison of self-centered egotism.
2. Empathy reveals strength and security. Only strong, mature, secure people are relaxed enough to let go of their ego so they can listen and be of service to others.
3. Empathy gives us real self-worth because we actually see the value of us helping people. In contrast, egotism is a false self-worth because we have to constantly aggrandize ourselves with vanity. Vanity is the Mother of False Self-Worth.
4. Empathy allows us to listen. Listening helps bring in new information, which forces us to let go of our old, stale ideas. Often we need new information to cleanse us of our old, stagnant ideas and to establish a tabula rasa or blank slate so we can begin anew.
Part Five. Student Activity
Think of someone you know who suffers from egotism and solipsism. This one-page profile could be used for the first page of your essay.
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