Spirituality in Raymond Carver and Denis Johnson's Short Stories

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numb the pain, one tends to bypass the spiritual hope that can help he/she and instead looses all faith and completely gives up. But Carver and Johnson expose few instances where hope can be rejuvenated and dreams can be revitalized Jesus' Son contains a series of short stories of dreamers, addicts, and lost souls. These stories tell of spiraling grief and transcendence, of hitting rock bottom and attaining redemption, of getting lost and found and lost again. Throughout Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson shows a series of characters caught in heroin addiction. It evaluates how Johnson intertwines a spiritual insightfulness with the constant chaos that revolves around each character. For Johnson's narrator, narcotics often serve as a means to escape everyday life. Jesus' Son, whose narration is like a spiritual journeying takes you on a pilgrimage of sorts. The progress through the stories goes from habit to addiction to detox, a wandering toward redemption and spiritual rebirth. The setting ...

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his fears and misconceptions of Robert and his blindness. All of Carver's characters either connect or fail to connect on an intimate, spiritual level. Robert A. Emmons explains how “The domain of spirituality is used to illustrate opportunities as well as the potential limitations of assessing this realm of human experience through a personal goals framework.” (Personal Goals 395) With the help of Robert, the husband gains a revelation that changes his view and opens his eyes to the world. Robert serves as the missing link between the narrator and spirituality.
Sometimes people find themselves spiraling down a path of self-destruction. Sometimes they are so focused on the life they ...

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