Raymond Carver’s "neighbors"

Raymond Carver’s “Neighbors”

In Raymond Carver’s “Neighbors” the speaker’s attention seems to be more directed on the Bill and Arlene Miller. The Millers are a married couple who were once a happy couple but as the years went along they felt grew apart. It seems as though they are too busy comparing their lives to the Harriet and Jim Stone, which are their neighbors, that they don’t have time to fix their marriage. The Stones do what married people should do and that’s “go out for dinner, or entertaining at home, or traveling about the country somewhere…(70).” The Millers are given the responsibility of looking after the

Stones apartment for ten days, while they are on a pleasure trip. During these ten days they have to feed their Kitty, and water the plants. Because of this particular event the Millers, who seemed normal at first, began to act odd.

Bill would go in the apartment, feed the cat, water the plant, and stay in the apartment for hours. The first occasion he found a container of pills in the medicine chest labeling “-Harriet Stone. One each day as directed (70).” He took it and put it in his pocket. When I read that I asked myself, ‘why would he need a woman’s prescription?’ Then he drank some liquor and went across the hall to his wife. He played with her breast and asked her to come to bed. For some reason Bill started to act differently ever since he went to the Stone’s apartment. The longer he stayed in the apartment the more his sex drive would go up.