beginings of ethos analysis

Considered to be a major American short story writer of the 20th century, Raymond Carver’s stories often depict struggles of blue-collar America and have been acclaimed for their clear, hard language and accurate representation of human behavior during a point of nadir or recovery. Carver’s voice and accurate depictions can be accredited to his own life experiences as a working class male, which he often employs into his characters, such as the narrator in “Where I’m Calling From.” Here, Carver writes in first person, through the point of view of a man recovering from alcoholism at a “drying-out facility”. Along with his life experiences, Carver also utilizes various literary approaches such as contextual meaning, vernacular, metaphor, and allusions, in order to further authenticate and legitimatize his story. Through the use of these devices and his personal experiences in “Where I’m Calling From”, Carver demonstrates strong ethos as a writer, which thus produces an accurate and authentic testimony of alcoholism recovery among working class Americans.
Probably the most captivating aspect of “Where I’m Calling From” is the amount of personal experience Carver draws from in order to construct his characters and their behaviors. As a working class father who struggled with alcoholism throughout his adult life, Carver is able to include minor details about alcohol recovery such as paranoia and short attention span into the story. While conversing with another recovering man, the narrator interrupts the conversation with his inner thoughts about how he’s worried about a twitch in his shoulder and how he “knows something’s about to happen and (I) want to head it off” (Carver 278). Although this is just a minor detail in the story, it demonstrates an aspect about alcohol recovery that may be alien to people who had not experienced alcohol recovery. Therefore, the inclusion of these details not only provides a more accurate character portrayal, but also indicates that Carver may have experienced these symptoms himself. Here, Carver’s personal experiences help strengthen his ethos by suggesting to readers that the symptoms, or on a larger scale, character behaviors, are not invented, but actual substantive aspects of alcohol recovery, allowing them to trust Carver as an author.