Neighbors

​Names: Laura Zagorski and Nick Fiorentino


 * Posting: Analysis of "Neighbors" by Raymond Carver**

Summary: Bill and Arlene Miller, a "happy couple", are given the responsibiltity of house-sitting their "more exciting and happy" neighbors, Jim and Harriet Stone, while they go on yet another vacation. Their job is simple - feed the cat daily and water the plants. However, on the first day, while feeding "Kitty", Bill decides to explore the apartment, taking pills out of their cabinet and drinking their alcoholic beverages, just as casually as if he lived there. There is a clear change in Bill as he returns home invigorated, asking his wife "to bed". The next few days are filled with similiar activity on Bill's part, going into the apartment and eating their food, stealing cigarettes and even trying on Jim //and// Harriet's clothing. In this shady cycle, he nonchalantly lies to Arlene as to why his trips there have taken so long and distracts her with lustfully suggesting yet more sexual activity. However, the tables turn when Arlene goes to feed the cat, only to make a similar excuse for her whereabouts after spending a great deal of time there. From here, she suggests that they both go to the apartment, realizing that she had forgotten to feed "Kitty" all together. As they approach the door, she tells Bill that she has found some "pictures" in their drawers and excitedly go to see what they are. However, they anxiously realize that the door is locked from the inside, at which point the panic, with the story ending with them embracing and leaning up against the locked door.

Analysis of this story:

Symbols in "Neighbors":
 * //The apartment itself// - the Stones' apartment represents a kind of forbidden pleasure trove, where Bill goes as a way to feel like he is living a life as good as the Stones. Here, he can live out all of his vices and fantasies (including drinking heavily, stealing, cross-dressing). When he comes back from this place, he is described as newly confident, being sexually flirtatious (even down-right perverted) with Arlene who is shown as both flattered yet uncomfortable. However, it is a forbidden or taboo place, considering the precaution that Bill takes in going through the rooms, looking out the windows and lying to his wife to cover his trail.


 * //The mirror// - throughout Bill's many debauches in this pleasure-world that is the apartment, he is described as looking at himself in the mirror several times. At first, he looks in the mirror "closes his eyes", almost ashamed of the unfulfilled man that he sees. However, when he's trying on the clothes, drinking and the like, he continues to look in the mirror, even smiling at times. But, in a sense, it is as if he is trying to reassure himself that by living vcariously through Jim, he is becoming the kind of man that he always wanted to be. Clearly, however, this is superficial, and all it shows is how vulnerable and insecure Bill is with the excitement (or lack there of) in his life.


 * //The cat// - representing the common archetype of "scapegoat", the cat, "Kitty", is utilized by the Millers as an blatant excuse to venture into the apartment that they increasing become more and more addicted to, if you will. At first, feeding the cat is a necessity to them but once they realize all of the other things they can do in the apartment, they increasing use the cat as reason for their long departures in it: "What kept you?" Arlene said, with Bill responding, "Nothing. Playing with Kitty." (which is a lie). By the end of the book, in the ironic height of their preoccupation with the Stones' apartment, Arlene goes to the apartment simply to rummage, returning with Bill after completey forgetting to feed it. Thus, it represents an enabling figure, although innocent in nature.



A Psychological Look at "Neighbors":


 * To compensate for the unhappiness that they have in their marriage, and in their lives in general, the Millers,by going through the stuff in the apartment, are receiving a false sense of satisfaction that by using the Stone's things and being in the apartment, they are in some way being fulfilled in their lives through the lives of these other, more happy and content people. They become more confident and seem to have a heightened feeling of power, despite their vulnerable condition. However, when they leave this new-found comfort that is the apartment, they are once again unfulfilled, //needing// the symbol of the apartment to feel good again, like a drug almost.


 * The Millers, particularly Bill, live out all of his vices (his psychoanalytical "id") in the Miller's apartment, knowing that they are away and can't do anything about it. Therefore, there is no moral-driven "super-ego" to keep him from drink heavily, sexual debauchery and questionable cross-dressing. Thus, he is being held to no standard (e.i. not being compared to his "superior" neighbors) what so ever, and his ego is allowed to run free in the haven that is the apartment.