What the Doctor Said by Raymond Carver
"What the Doctor Said" by Raymond Carver is a poignant poem that explores the emotional turmoil surrounding a terminal cancer diagnosis. The speaker recounts a deeply impactful moment in which his doctor delivers the news of his inoperable lung cancer, marked by a sense of awkwardness and profound sadness. The doctor's clinical yet compassionate approach underscores the gravity of the situation, as he refrains from suggesting treatments and instead poses a question about the speaker's religious beliefs, signaling the finality of the prognosis.
Throughout the poem, the speaker's complex feelings emerge, including a strange sense of gratitude towards the doctor for providing him with a truth that no one else could give. This mixture of emotions reveals a search for meaning in the face of impending death, suggesting that the speaker might find solace in spirituality and nature despite his grim circumstances. The poem's structure, lacking traditional punctuation and capitalization, enhances the immediacy of the speaker's thoughts, making the reader feel as if they are privy to an intimate moment. Carver's use of stark imagery and prosaic language invites reflection on mortality, faith, and the human experience, ultimately leaving readers with a sense of ambiguity regarding hope and acceptance in the face of despair.
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Subject Terms
What the Doctor Said by Raymond Carver
First published: 1989, in A New Path to the Waterfall
Type of poem: Meditation
The Poem
In “What the Doctor Said,” the speaker is recalling the most traumatic experience of his life. His doctor tells him he has terminal lung cancer. The fact that it is inoperable is indicated by the doctor’s statement that he quit after counting “thirty-two of them.” Twice the doctor refers to “them” as if avoiding calling “them” what they really are: malignant tumors. He does not suggest any treatment such as radiation or chemotherapy, nor does he suggest, as doctors often do, that his patient seek a second opinion. The doctor is trying to be kind but wants to make it clear that there is no hope for a cure. Both doctor and patient feel awkward, and the speaker is more aware of the doctor’s feelings than his own. He will have plenty of time to experience his own complex feelings when he is alone with the grim, inescapable fact that he is very gently being handed his death sentence. The doctor quite understandably asks the patient if he is a religious man, presumably hoping he has some faith in a higher power that will give him consolation. This question, however, only makes the patient’s grim fate more certain because it is as if the doctor is saying, “There is nothing medical science can do for you; you had better prepare to meet your maker.”
The poem ends with a very puzzling statement. The speaker seems almost grateful that the doctor has just given him “something no one else on earth” has ever given him. The speaker deliberately terminates the interview by jumping up and shaking hands with the doctor. Realizing that there is no more to be said or done in that claustrophobic office, he wants to get away. The awkwardness of the interview is underscored by the fact that the speaker recalls that he may have even thanked the doctor—although under the circumstances it would be nearly as inappropriate to do so as for a prisoner to thank the judge who has just sentenced him to be executed. The reader can relate to the patient because it is force of habit to say something such as “Thank you, Doctor” at the conclusion of an office visit. The speaker is obviously experiencing a wild mixture of feelings. What is so strange is that these mixed feelings seem to include gratitude and relief. He regards the doctor’s fatal pronouncement as a gift, “something no one else on earth had ever given [him].” The reader is left wondering how such a diagnosis could have any mitigating overtones. It would seem that the speaker sees some ray of hope when the doctor alludes to religion and love of nature. Apparently the speaker feels that although he has only a short time to live, he may still be able to achieve spiritual enlightenment.
Forms and Devices
“What the Doctor Said,” a poem of only twenty-three lines, is typical of a popular school of modern poetry. Its members have abandoned all traditional poetic devices, including rhyme, meter, and “poetic diction,” and write in a simple, straightforward, conversational manner. The poem is also completely lacking in punctuation. Raymond Carver has even departed from the convention of capitalizing the first letter in each line. There are no quotation marks around the words spoken by the doctor or patient, and there is no question mark at the end of the sentence in which the doctor asks if the speaker is a religious man who prays for spiritual guidance. There is not even a period at the end of the last line. The elimination of conventional punctuation marks makes “What the Doctor Said” seem like a stream-of-consciousness narrative and makes readers feel as if they are eavesdropping on very private thoughts and feelings. A longer example of this kind of interior monologue can be found in the last chapter of James Joyce’s famous novel Ulysses (1922), often called “Molly Bloom’s Soliloquy,” which consists of one sentence running for forty-five pages without a single punctuation mark.
It is especially noteworthy that the poem is factual and prosaic except for lines 7-11, in which the doctor appears to be using poetic imagery and metaphysical terminology. These lines stand out in sharp contrast to the others in the poem. The speaker’s recollection is sketchy: It seems likely that most of the words he attributes to the doctor in those lines (especially “mist blowing against your face and arms”) are not really part of “what the doctor said” but rather thoughts and images aroused in the speaker’s own mind. The device of having a few lines of vivid imagery stand out against a backdrop of deliberately prosaic utterance can be found in some of Shakespeare’s sonnets. It always has the effect of making the imagery more intense by contrast. A good example for comparison with Carver’s poem is William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, which contains the famous lines:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Bibliography
Bethea, Arthur F. Technique and Sensibility in the Fiction and Poetry of Raymond Carver. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Campbell, Ewing. Raymond Carver: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1992.
Gallagher, Tess. Soul Barnacles: Ten More Years with Ray. Edited by Greg Simon. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
Halpert, Sam. Raymond Carver: An Oral Biography. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1995.
Lainsbury, G. P. The Carver Chronotope: Inside the Life-World of Raymond Carver’s Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Nesset, Kirk. The Stories of Raymond Carver: A Critical Study. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995.
Powell, Jon. “The Stories of Raymond Carver: The Menace of Perpetual Uncertainty.” Studies in Short Fiction 31 (Fall, 1994): 647-656.
Runyon, Randolph Paul. Reading Raymond Carver. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1992.
Saltzman, Arthur M. Understanding Raymond Carver. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.
Stull, William L., and Maureen P. Carroll, eds. Remembering Ray: A Composite Biography of Raymond Carver. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Capra Press, 1993.