Less Is More

Raymond Carver (1938—1988), a famous contemporary American writer and poet. He is called "the father of Minimalism", for his simple and plain description language, objective and cool way of description. He had contributed to the revival of the short stories of the United States in 80’s. Carver’s writing career lasted from 1963 to 1988. During his 25-year-long writing career, Carver publishes 65 short stories. Although his stories are various in many ways, all of them present the features of Minimalism. In the 21st century, there have been extensive studies on Carver and his works in international academia, but not many in China.Carver is known as "the most important novelist of the United States in the later twentieth century" and "the most influential short story writer of America after Ernest Hemingway ", "the London Times" called him " Chekhov in America" after his death. Inheriting Hemingway’s "Iceberg Theory", Carver developed the principle of writing "Less is More" to show readers the cut and fuzzy story, and the dialogues broken off by silence and the absence of clues, vacancies and omissions, and the use of repeat, to make his novels present ambiguity, leaving the audiences more spaces to think. In addition, he forced himself to face the hopeless reality, created the image of the trifles who struggling in the bottom of society one after another, they are all "losers". Carver described the real life of normal people, and dig out the essence of existence, inspiring the readers.Taking Raymond Carver’s short stories as the object of study, this thesis aims to comprehensively grasp and systematically analyze Carver’s short stories based on existing research by the method of depth reading and so on. The thesis can be divided into five parts, including introduction, three body chapters and conclusion. Introduction briefly shows Carver and the emergence of a new fiction, summaries present research at home and abroad, then puts forward the perspective and thinking of the research. Chapter one starts from the relationship between Minimalism and Iceberg Theory, discusses the similarities and differences between them, finds the unique charm of Carver’s short stories. Chapter two explores the aesthetic characteristics of conciseness based on the extremely concise style. Chapter three reveals survival plight in the stories, and focuses on two aspects, including survival hardship and spiritual suffering. Conclusion summarizes the paper comprehensively and appreciates the significance of Carver’s short stories, then points out the inspiration given by the stories to the present people.