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Chef's House Short Story

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The short story, Chef’s house, is written by Raymond Carver in 1983. This essay will include an analysis of the short story, a summary but mainly focus on the themes in the text, the style of writing and the effect it has. In the short story, we are introduced to Wes, a middle-aged man, and he has rented a house from another man called Chef. Wes – the main character, is a recovering alcoholic. He separated from his wife, Edna, and goes to live by the ocean, in a house he has rented from another recovered alcoholic, Chef. Wes then calls his wife and asks her if she can come and live with him. “He said he was on the wagon”, this is usually a phrase for a recovering alcoholic or the sober period for the alcoholic. She agrees to come and live …show more content…

The author doesn’t include any inverted commas in this story, which is ironically full of direct speech. At first, it can confuse the reader, but the writer may have done this to show a vulnerability. One of the biggest themes in this story is alcoholism, and the writer is taking away the inverted commas, something we readers are used to see. Just like Chef takes away Wes’ happy place, the house, the writer is taking something away from the reader. This gives the reader an effect of not having any control, which might be how an alcoholic feel when they are intoxicated – having no …show more content…

Being parents at a very young age, which was fairly normal back then must be a very hard role to take on. Being thrown into adulthood is a tough and difficult, and it might lead to things like alcoholism. Wes could have been depressed over not having truly discovered who he was as a person, and when he was drinking all his troubles and reasonability as a father went away. He found his identity when he was drunk, but it was all soon over when he got sober again. However, Edna might have found her identity in the fact that she’s a married woman. She didn’t call her boyfriend a boyfriend, but just a friend. She took her ring back on when she was at the house with Wes because she’s identifying herself ad Wes’ wife

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