Where I'm Calling From

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1982

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Summary

Background

Story Analysis

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Alienation from Self and Family

The story focuses on the plight of becoming alienated, both from oneself and from one’s family, a common experience among people with addictions. A sense of alienation is present from the first paragraph, when the narrator says, “J.P.’s real name is Joe Penny, but he says I should call him J.P.” (208). While he is at Frank Martin’s, J.P. desires to distance himself from his identity as represented by his full name. Carver emphasizes this distance when Roxy calls J.P. “Joe” (which indicates he is not referred to by his initials back at home) and when J.P. says, “Jack London. What a name! I wish I had me a name like that. Instead of the name I got” (215). In these instances, a name stands in for a person’s identity, and the characters’ shame regarding their addiction causes them to go through a distinctive self-alienation.

Names and naming hold further thematic significance. Carver correlates the revelation of names with success, stability, and perhaps even freedom from addiction. The narrator’s name is even more shrouded than J.P.’s initials; his wife and girlfriend, whose lives are also impacted by the narrator’s turbulence, are similarly unnamed. Even Tiny, when the narrator introduces him, has only a nickname. In contrast, Roxy’s name is revealed, underscoring the strength of her character independent of J.P.’s influence; and Frank Martin, the owner of the facility, is almost doubly named, since the characters always refer to him by both his first and last name. These naming conventions suggest that the use of a name, both with oneself and with others, indicates connectedness, while a name’s absence or concealment indicates alienation.

Carver uses several other strategies to represent characters’ alienation from themselves and each other, ranging from subtle to more straightforward. Among the most literal occurrences of alienation is when the narrator cannot reach his wife or girlfriend by phone, or (in the case of his girlfriend) even to motivate himself to make the call. He is isolated from them—both physically and emotionally—and unsure whether he even wants the connection. Similarly, he further alienates himself from his wife by forming a relationship with his girlfriend, just as Roxy alienated herself from J.P. by finding a boyfriend.

A more subtle alienation features when J.P. recalls falling down the well as a child: “In short, everything about his life was different for him at the bottom of that well” (210). Something about this experience stays with J.P., and while the precise impact is unclear, the event involved an element of isolation that was clearly traumatic. The young J.P. was temporarily cut off from the whole world—forcefully alienated—and as he now uses this story to preface his account of developing an addiction, he presumably associates the two experiences, even if only unconsciously. There is also the possibility that this trauma caused a lasting emotional destabilization that put J.P. at risk of trying to self-medicate through alcohol, but if so, J.P. does not let on his awareness of that fact. Certain traumas alienate people from themselves in ways they cannot parse, and they can try to understand the effects on their lives and choices. As the narrator himself asks when describing how J.P. began drinking heavily, “Who knows why we do what we do?” (212).

The Importance of Love and Friendship

The progression of the story, along with any progress the main characters make, depends on the presence of love and friendship. Love is what lands the narrator and J.P. at Frank Martin’s, as flawed as that love may be; and friendship is what allows J.P. to tell his story and push both himself and the narrator forward.

One of the most unique aspects of the story’s depiction of relationships, particularly romantic relationships, is their emphatic imperfection. So much of the story, and even the characters’ survival, depends on flawed relationships. For the narrator and J.P., drinking has had profoundly destructive effects on their long-term romantic relationships, yet it is those very relationships that give them a chance of recovery: J.P.’s father-in-law and brother-in-law bring him to Frank Martin’s (presumably at the behest of his wife, Roxy), and the narrator’s wife and girlfriend each bring him on different occasions.

Moreover, the recovery itself holds implications for whether the relationships will survive. When the narrator recalls his wife bringing him to Frank Martin’s for his first stay, he describes that period as “when we were still together, trying to make things work out” (215)—and when the narrator did not commit himself to recovery, his wife asked him to leave. Likewise, his girlfriend brought him to Frank Martin’s for his second stay, but because the narrator’s investment in recovery is in question, the status of their future relationship is also unknown. In all these cases, romantic partnerships have been the catalyst for treatment. The women seem willing to forfeit their relationships, as they are unwilling to let those relationships go on without their male partners getting help.

Carver similarly situates friendships as essential for survival, even when those friendships are imperfect. When Roxy arrives and tells the narrator, “I’m glad Joe’s made a friend” (219), it demonstrates just how important that particular friendship is. Both men have depended on each other to “hold space” and to think, talk, and reflect, leading to a type of internal change that would have been unlikely for either man to encounter on his own. Even when the narrator does something as questionable as ask his friend’s wife for a kiss, this does not seem to affect their friendship. Each man sees the other as a partial reflection of himself, which is what allows each to give the other grace and even a sense of hope. By the end of the story, both love and friendship have been distilled as lifelines.

The Complexity of Addiction and Recovery

Because of Carver’s own lived experience with alcohol addiction and recovery, the story resists a simple narrative about addiction. Carver presents people with complexity: Characters living with addiction both have an illness and are at least partially responsible for their recovery; they experience shame, and yet that shame itself is an object of critique. Like so much of Carver’s fiction, this story bears a realism that demands a nuanced perspective.

Much about the narrator’s experience with addiction is unknown to readers. It is unclear how or why he began drinking, and the impacts on his life outside his romantic relationships are largely a mystery. Because addiction is essentially a given in his life, the narrator has a matter-of-fact way of discussing it, evident in his revelation that he is in treatment for a second time: “I’ve been here once before. What’s to say? I’m back” (208). The sentences’ brevity and colloquial diction create a straightforward voice, and he makes no attempt to sugarcoat his condition’s tenacity. Despite his tone of hopelessness and the suggestion of futility, there is a glimmer of hope in the narrator’s refusal to dwell on the past; if he is not focused on the past, then he can move toward the future, which at least has the possibility of being different. There is yet more complexity in this idea, however, as recovery also typically requires acknowledging past harm that has resulted from one’s addiction. The narrator’s challenge is to acknowledge his history without getting mired in the self-condemnation that would prevent a forward-looking perspective. By the end of the story, he appears to be on that trajectory.

J.P.’s story suggests not an excuse for his drinking but perhaps a reason. J.P. makes it clear that he lacked direction in his life before he met Roxy and that he carries some trauma from his fall down the well, and he implies that drinking has functioned as a balm in his life. However, because of the addictive potential of alcohol, it soon took control and created even more problems: “Things got out of hand. But he kept on drinking. He couldn’t stop. And nothing could make him stop” (213). At this point, J.P.’s behavior truly signifies an illness, and one can never will oneself out of an illness. One can, however, will oneself to seek treatment. The story does not delve into the science of alcohol addiction, yet J.P.’s portrayal consists with the scientific understanding of the disorder: Such impulsivity and relapse signal biological changes in the brain that would make abstaining from alcohol almost impossible without medical intervention.

Despite Carver’s tacit explanation of alcohol addiction being an illness, his characters still exhibit significant shame over both their addiction and the behaviors that have resulted from it. Yet by the end of the story, shame is not a foregone conclusion. When the narrator imagines calling his wife, he thinks, “She’ll ask me where I’m calling from, and I’ll have to tell her” (221). By being honest about his situation and taking responsibility for where he is, the narrator potentially takes a step toward true recovery. Even if that recovery does not last, the narrator is at least striving away from shame by fighting his urge to lie. With this character arc, Carver suggests that overcoming shame is key to recovery.