Indledning
"They're not your husband" is a short story written by Raymond Carver, who was born in 1938 and passed away in 1988.
His texts are primarily about lower-middle-class people and are often rather complex. There have been drawn parallels from the authors own life to some of his many texts, as he for a long time himself was categorized as a lower-middle-class citizen.
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Uddrag
As explained there is a lot going on between the different characters. The most important sequence in the short story must anyhow be the one where the two men objectively describes Doreen's looks. Earl is listening and in the light of that decides to psychologically and verbally force Doreen in to losing weight.
As the title suggests "they're not your husband" Doreen should not let herself be forced into compulsive weight loss. She should not take advice from those two men even though it was distributed to her through her own husband.
It could also be symbol for how Earl should have reacted. He should have told Doreen that she was perfectly fine and that she should not worry about the words from those men as "they're not your husband".
In that way the title becomes a contrast to the plot. Instead the plot is about how Earl moulds Doreen into being what he wants.
The theme could almost be something like spousal abuse, in a psychological way of course.
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