Analyse af Raymond Carvers novelle 'Neighbors'

Neighbors is a short story by Raymond Carver and is a part of the collection of short stories called Short Cuts from 1993. The story is about two couples who are neighbours, The Millers and The Stones. The Millers are watching The Stones apartment while they are on a trip. The Millers behaviour becomes rather odd when they are at The Stones apartment.

The language in the short story is colloquial and it is minimalistic as well, which one of Raymond Carver’s characteristics. This causes the story to mostly consists of verbs and nouns and there are rarely any descriptive sentences with the use of adjectives. For example, while Bill walks through The Stones home he observes “He saw ashtrays, items of furniture, kitchen utensils, the clock.” (p. 17). This description is bland, so the reader is forced to use their imagination to create the scenery. This also comes across in the minimalistic and almost unimaginative title “Neighbors”. The third-person narrator does not state the characters opinions, he solely states their actions objectively. Therefore, the narrator becomes an observant and the characters are described indirectly through their actions. Which also presents the narrator to be reliable, since it does not condone or condemn the behaviour of the characters.