Raymond_Carvers_The_Neighbors

Raymond Carvers The Neighbors Critical Essay Raymond Carver’s 1988 short story “Neighbors” displays a sure administration of theme, character, and setting. It is the tale of a seemingly typical couple, Bill and Arlene Miller, who intermittently turn the apartment of their out-of-town neighbors, the Stones, into a psychosexual playground. Insidiously at first, then with unrestraint, the house-sitters invade the Stones’ privacy: cross-dressing in their clothes, consuming drinks from their liquor cabinet, and extricating photographs that promise tantalizing thrills. Impassioned, the Millers’ make what promises to be a compelling visit to the Stones’ apartment – only to discover that Arlene has locked the key inside. Abruptly restricted from their fallen rapture, the couple huddles outside the door, feeling an ailing wind. In the exposition, Bill and Arlene are portrayed as an average married couple, living their normal everyday lives. They do not appear to have any complaints about how their lives are operating except for the fact that they “had been passed by somehow, leaving Bill to attend to his bookkeeping duties and Arlene occupied with secretarial chores” (59). The Millers’ are envious of other couples that seem to exist synonymously with them but still have a little more recreation neighbors, bill, apartment, story, arlene, stones’, couple, millers’, lives, door, setting, secret, one, becomes, visit, together, time, theme, sexual, self, reader, open, ones’, locked, key, inside, implying, first, fantasy, couples, character, carver’s, average, about