In between the two world wars, America suffered from hunger and unemployment. This all happened because of the huge economic crisis, which struck the whole world in 1929. It is not unusual that this type of crisis can lead man into alcoholism and gambling, and quickly, a whole family can be on the edge of destruction.
This is exactly what Raymond Carver describes in his novel “My Father’s Life” from 1984.
In his novel, Raymond Carver describes his father’s life, starting with his death and continuing with how he met his wife. The story goes on, telling about their poor life, his alcoholism, gambling and his unfaithfulness.
The father is named Clevie Raymond Carver and he is roughly described as a drunkard, who has a hard time finding …show more content…

The night before he acted like he used to, ate some foot, drank some whiskey and went to bed. The next morning, his wife found him in the bed, mouth open, cheeks graved, gray looking and clearly very dead.

The mother does not seem to have an important role in the family, other than she is there to do the stuff mothers in those years did: clean, cook and take care of the child. She knows that her husband is cheating on her, but she does not do much about it, in the open: “One time she found someone else’s tube of lipstick on the floorboard, along with a lacy handkerchief. ‘See this?’ she said to me. ‘Some floozy left this in the car.’” But she wants to figure out what he is hiding from her, hence why she tries to make him talk in his sleep. Apparently she has not much to say about his unfaithfulness, but when it comes to him being violent and drunk, she puts her foot down.
“He was drunk, and we could feel the house shudder as he rattled the door. When he’d managed to force open a window, she hit him between the eyes with a colander and knocked him out.”
She cares about her husband and tries to make him stop drinking too much alcohol by pouring his whisky out or mixing it with water. She could never dream of cheating on him and has never been with anyone before him or since she got married to him, despite the fact that her husband is cheating with a lot of different women.

In the end, you could maybe conclude, that this story is about both Raymond’s father and