Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a short story collection first published in 1981 that was meant to serve as a contemplative treatise on love, loss, abuse and relationships.

Carver has been known for his widespread use of everyday elements to serve as a sort of iconography for larger themes and more complex ideas in his fictional works.

In particular, windows are often used to reveal moments of abrupt truth and clarity—the root of the word literally means "wind's eye"—the idea that we can see truth through it, either literally or figuratively.

He also routinely uses the elements—weather events like snow, ice and gusts of wind—as either facilitators or hindrances of this clarity. Used in tandem with the window concept, it can serve as a very powerful metaphor for the symbolic realization of truth.

The boy clearing ice from his windshield is no exception. Only though the literal removal of ice can the clear window be revealed just as such hindrances to truth must symbolically be removed to gain clarity. To Carver, windows are outlets to truth.

Clearly, such notions are part and parcel to the larger themes of the book, as inner clarity is a critical concept to accepting both love and loss.