Response to "The Student's Wife" by Raymond Carver

     The first thing that caught my attention in the short story "The Student's Wife", by Raymond Carver, was how real the scene felt to me.  However, it was real to me in a more emotional way than a physical way; I could feel the annoyance of the husband and the desperation of the wife more than I could visualize what they looked like.   Perhaps it was because I read this piece while I was very sleepy, but it was easy for me to sympathize with Mike while he keeps drifting off and Nan keeps trying to wake him up.  I was very annoyed by the timing of her nagging, and how just when Mike was drifting off, Nan would have another request to keep him from his much desired sleep.  Then, there was a turning point on page 205 where Mike stays asleep and the point of view shifts to Nan.  It is at this point when I started to feel even more uncomfortable, because the excruciating detail and abruptness with which Carver expresses her thoughts so perfectly captured the feeling of insomnia.  Enumerating all the little tasks Nan runs around doing, trying to get to sleep and the restless nature with  which she does them made me feel almost panicky and frantic for this woman to get to sleep, because I could relate to the feeling so much.  The most compelling detail for me was the repeated crying that Nan does, because it seemed like such a helpless action at that point, and made her seem so alone.  By the end of this story, though it was only a few pages, I felt like I had been up all night with this woman, and I wanted to go to bed so badly!
     However, I think this story was more about unhappiness than exhaustion, and the first hint of this is when Nan starts listing all the things she "would like" as opposed to the things she already "likes" (204), and this emotion is built upon and culminates with her prayer for help at the end of the story (206).  The exhaustion only helps accentuate the feeling of helplessness and unhappiness that Nan feels.  It is the kind of desperation that keeps her up all night and makes her feel totally alone even when she is so physically close to others.