Frank O'Connor's " My Oedipus Complex" and Raymond Carver's " What We Talk About When We Talk About Love", are both excellent examples of the varied ways in which love can be expressed. The author "My Oedipus Complex" writes of his own childhood love for his mother and how family events dramatically affected their relationship. "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" on the other hand talks about a more grown up love, or rather of that which is felt between two intimate adults. Both stories however, provide excellent examples of how one's feelings of love can be expressed in a variety of ways.
             O'Connor writes as a middle aged adult looking back upon his childhood love for his mother. The story is that of a young boy growing up in an Irish family in the early Nineteen Hundreds. A special relationship develops between mother and son in the absence of the father. Upon the fathers return from what one would presume to be World War One the boy becomes confused and aggravated by the transfer of his mother's attention from himself to his father.
             "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love " takes place within a conversation between two couples. The conversation is mostly guided by the character Mel McGinnis, in what is more or less a drunken pursuit to understand the meaning of love.
             In "My Oedipus Complex" the narrators love for his mother, as ignorant and as odd as it may seem, is developed into some what of a despise for his father. When the mother shushes and quiets the boy in what she says is out of respect for Daddy, the child is dumbfounded at what seems to be a redirection of her love for him onto his father. His anger from the perceived lack of love is clearly shown in his statement that " I was sickened by the sentimentality of 'poor daddy' "(99). His love for his mother had grown so deep th...