A Deeper Look at “neighbors”

In the story “Neighbors”, a man and a woman’s true nature is revealed when nobody is watching. Bill and Arlene Miller are introduced as a normal, “happy,” middle class married couple, but they feel less important than their friends Harriet and Jim Stone, who live in the apartment across the hall. The Miller’s perceive the Stone’s to have a better and more eventful life. The Stones get to travel often because o Jim’s job, leaving their ca and plants n the care of the Millers. When the Stones leave on their vacation, the two families seem like good friends, but the depth of the Miller’s jealousy is revealed as a kind of obsession with the Stones’ everyday life.

The first night the Millers house sit, Bill tends to the cat, and then to his obsessive curiosity. He wanders through the Stone’s medicine cabinets, and steal a bottle of Harriet’s pills. This comes as a surprise to the reader because there is not any indication that Bill might act this way. Only after his curiosity is fulfilled does he carry out the rest of his house sitting duties by watering the plants. This shows that he is more concerned with his own needs than those or his neighbors. When Bill returns to his own apartment, arouse after being in the Stones’ apartment, he fondles his wife’s breasts and asks her if she wants to sleep with him that night. Here the reader can start to get a hint that Bill gets a sexual turn-on from being in the Stones’ apartment.

The following day Bill, still aroused, takes off work early so that he can come home and sleep with his wife. Later, Bill heads across the hall again to take care of his house sitting chores. After carrying out his duties of the cat and the plant, Bill snoops around opening cabinets, eating the Stones’ food and “found a half-empty package of cigarettes and stuffed them into his pocket.” Wondering what is taking her husband so long, Arlene comes to the Stones’ apartment and knocks on the door. Bill, trying to hide his snooping about, flushes the toilet to try to convince his wife that this is why he was taking to long. Here he realizes his strange nature, not wanting his wife to find him odd. When Arlene asks him why he has taken so long, Bill is completely unaware of the time that has past since he has been in thee apartment.

That next day, only the third day of the Stones’ vacation, Bill ha Arlene call him in sick at work. Bill decides to go for a walk, but when returning to his own apartment he passes