Purohit 1

Geet Purohit

Professor Adam Morris

ENGL 101

04/04/2022

Between Raymond Carver’s What We Talk about When We Talk about Love and Greg Berlanti and Sera

Gamble’s YOU

Relationship abuse is a widespread problem, it is usually seen in different forms: mental,

physical, or social. Although there are no justifications for these abuses, both the texts are trying

to portray ‘Love’ as a justification. It makes us question not only the definition of love but also

the mentality of people who are in love with someone. Is it appropriate for them to physically

abuse their “loved” ones? Our first text What We Talk about When We Talk about Love written

by Raymond Carver, includes two couples, our narrator, Nick and his life Laura and Nick’s

friend Mel and his wife Terri. Both the couples are having Gin and talking about their past

relationships. Mel and Terri both had divorces before they got together. Terri talks about her

relationship with Ed, she said that Ed loved her so much that he tried to kill her. She also

mentions that Ed beat her up once, and dragged her on the floor, her head kept hitting things,

while Ed said, “I love you, I love you, you bitch.” (Carver 124). Afterwards Mel argued that

Terri was being silly, calling it love, according to him he does not even know what to call it, but

he is certain that it was not love. But Terri counters Mel’s argument by telling how she felt that it

was love although he was a bit crazy, and she thinks that it was Ed’s own way of loving her, and

she wanted to refrain Mel from saying otherwise. The argument heated even more when Mel

said, “Terri’s a romantic. Terri’s of the kick-me-so-I'll-know-you-love-me school. Terri, hon,

don’t look that way” (Carver 124). It suggests that Terri looked angry after Mel’s statement. Mel,
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thereafter, asks Nick and Laura how they feel about the whole situation, whether Ed loved Terri

or not. To their response they unitedly stand on neutral grounds. However, Mel continues to

argue that the kind of love he is talking about does not involve someone trying to kill people.

After that Terri continues the story that when she left Ed, he drank rat poison and was

hospitalized in Santa Fe. After Ed was saved from that, he shot himself in the mouth although he

survived that too. Apparently, he survived that for three days and ultimately died. Within the

occurrence of these events, Terri felt sorry for Ed, and she even went to see him at the hospital

when he shot himself. An interesting revelation that was brought to light by Mel was that the gun

Ed shot himself with, Ed bought it for a different purpose of threatening Terri and Mel. As a

result, Mel bought a gun himself for self-defense and they lived like fugitives for days.

In our second text which is a TV series on Netflix, YOU by Sera Gamble, our protagonist

Joe Goldberg, seems desperate to develop a relationship with Beck. As he follows her to her

house, he gets to know that she has a boyfriend, Benji. He goes through all her social media,

basically stalking her. He follows Beck to a bar she went out to with her friends. After getting

out of that bar, Joe waits to take the subway and Beck enters the scene being very drunk and

hence tipsy, she drops her phone and herself on the track. Right after that the train approaches

nearer but Beck couldn’t get herself up, although Joe helped her get up before the train came and

therefore saved her. Joe drops Beck at her place, he takes her phone with him instead of giving it

back to her. After that he starts looking up social media of Benji and Beck’s friends. He develops

a theory about Benji’s behavior and decides to kidnap Benji as he thinks that Benji is not right

for Beck. He orchestrated Benji’s kidnapping and locked him in a glass cage in the library

basement where Joe works. Joe confiscated Benji’s phone and made it look like Benji was high
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in Massachusetts. Although after that Joe played Judge, Jury and Executioner, and he decided to

kill Benji. After Joe killed Benji, Joe worked on developing his relationship with Beck. After

they got into a more intimate relationship, Joe got to know more about Beck’s friends. But

Peach, one of Beck’s friends, seemed to dislike Joe, it is evident that whenever Joe is around

with Beck, Peach’s responses seem to have a hint of jealousy. Joe figures out that Peach is

obsessed with Beck and as he stole Peach’s laptop and looked over her files, he found pictures of

Beck, basically naked. It confirmed Joe’s suspicions that Peach was in fact in love with Beck.

Joe tries to kill Peach by hitting a rock on her head during her morning jog, but he misses that

opportunity as Peach survives that, on the contrary Peach uses the opportunity to isolate herself

with Beck. As a result, Peach and Beck go to Peach’s place in Connecticut. Joe follows them and

sneaks into the house. Conversations between Peach and Beck show the intense desperation of

Peach to be with Beck as Peach wants to settle in Paris with Beck. The next day Beck realizes

that Peach loves her and henceforth Beck leaves. Joe finds an opportunity and kills Peach,

making it look like suicide. After the death of Peach, Beck seemed to be mentally stressed and

decides to see a therapist. Joe gets jealous and insecure about the fact that Beck would not talk

about things that are bothering her with Joe rather than seeing a therapist. He raises suspicions

that Beck is cheating on him with the therapist. They get involved in a fight but come to an

understanding and continue dating. However, Beck found a box of random things in Joe’s

apartment, it directly connected Joe to all the killings. When Joe knew that Beck knew about his

killings, he locked her in the cage too. While Beck was in the cage, Joe tried to explain that he

did whatever he did because of her love for Beck. He repeatedly argues that he killed Benji and

Peach because he loved Beck and wanted the best for her. He gives out evidence that Benji once
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killed someone and showed Peach’s laptop with naked pictures of Beck, justifying that they were

not good people for Beck and therefore he killed them.

By looking at the physical abuse that Terri went through but still justified it out of love

and Joe after killing two people for Beck we can see that the characters are creating a theory that

justifies such acts of violence behind the tag of love. It tells us that different people have

different points of view, even for something as ruthless as killing someone.

In both the texts we can see that some violent acts are given justification behind the tag of

love. It is evident from Raymond Carver’s What We Talk about When We Talk about Love, when

Ed, out of love, beat Terri up and dragged her on the floor, however, when talking about it, Terri

justifies that Ed did love her. In addition to that, Ed bought a gun in order to threaten to kill Mel

and Terri. Although even after all of that Terri seems to think that Ed did love her, according to

her it was his own way of loving despite the violence he showcased. In our second text, Sera

Gamble’s YOU, it is seen that Joe killed Benji, because he found out that Benji was cheating on

Beck and Benji was a toxic person for Beck. Moreover, Joe also killed Peach because Peach

loved Beck and she was obsessed with Beck and was not the right person for Beck to have

around. When Beck confronts Joe about his killings, Joe justifies that he did all of that because

Joe loved her and thought for her best interests. Although, at the end of the first season, Joe

killed Beck. Both the texts show a clear similarity of justifications taking place in the name of

love for some ruthless acts of violence. There are two major differences taking place, first the

intensity of the acts and secondly the people who are giving the justifications. In Raymond

Carver’s What We Talk about When We Talk about Love, Terri who was abused, is the one
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giving justification that whatever Ed did, he did out of love for Terri. However, in Sera Gamble’s

YOU, Joe, the perpetrator, is the one who is giving the justifications for his killings, that he did it

out of love for Beck. It is interesting to see the boundaries people can cross in the name of love

and the darker paths they walk on for love. We can also see the difference in the argument being

made, Terri argues that Ed loved her in spite of how he acted, and Joe argues that he killed Benji

and Peach out of his love for Beck. It tells us that Terri perhaps was on the same side as Ed,

while Beck cannot accept the fact that Joe killed two people, even if it was justified out of love.

This gives us two different perspectives, that Love is not a viable justification for violent acts

and another that despite the violent acts committed one can argue that Love did exist after all.

Both the texts are making an argument of the involvement of one’s past relationship, in

their current relationship. In Raymond Carver’s What We Talk about When We Talk about Love,

Terri seems to be fascinated with the type of love Ed had for her. Moreover, Mel mentions that

even if people break up from their previous relationship and enter a new one, do they really stop

loving the one they loved before? In Sera Gamble’s YOU, Joe is seen hallucinating his ex-

girlfriend, Candace, when he sneaks into Peach’s house. Joe apparently thought he killed

Candace and buried her in the forest. His hallucination of Candace keeps on insisting that Joe

will kill Beck too and it will end the same way for Joe and Beck, as it did for Joe and Candace.

The argument being made directly or indirectly asks the question whether people do really forget

or stop loving the ones they loved before or not. The difference is that in Raymond Carver’s

What We Talk about When We Talk about Love there is a direct debate being set if the argument

is viable or not, while the reason Joe is having hallucinations is because he fears the way his last

relationship ended and continues to fear that the destiny of his current relationship will meet the
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same result. This directs us to a conclusion on the question of forgetting past relationships that

all the good and bad aspects of past relationships might affect your present relationship. In Mel’s

perspective, love sustains, hence a good aspect of it remains. But from Joe’s perspective we can

see he experiences one of the bad aspects of his past relationship.

Concluding the arguments, it can be said that both the texts showcase different

perspectives of healthy and toxic relationships, focusing not only on the bright but also the

darker aspects of a relationship. Although Raymond Carver’s What We Talk about When We

Talk about Love seems to rely heavily on settling the debate of what true love means, while Sera

Gamble’s YOU, indirectly, paints the issue and takes a stand on portraying that the killings were

not justifiable in Beck’s perspective, who was in fact in love with Joe, spraying a clear line

between right and wrong.

Citation:

Carver, Raymond. "What We Talk about When We Talk about Love." 1981. The

Carolina Reader, edited by Chelsea D. Hawthorne and Kathleen A. Carroll,

Fall 2021 ed., Macmillan learning, 2021, pp. 123-33.

YOU. Directed by Lee Toland Krieger, Silver Tree, David Madden, Marcos Siega, and

Les Morgenstein, Berlanti Productions, Alloy Entertainment, and A+E Studios, 2018, Netflix

app.