era on "Neighbors" by Raymond Carver

"Neighbors" is brilliant at giving us the feeling of the strangeness that Bill and Arlene felt as they slowly encompass their neighbor's home into their everyday life. Bill and Arlene was described to having a happy life for an everyday people with an everyday mundane job. They do show envious feelings towards their neighbors as they live an extraordinary life of traveling and incorporating pleasure with business. In the beginning of the story, it describes Bill and Arlene clinging onto little things that their neighbors, Harriet and Jim Stone, have given them such as the handmade tablecloth. Being exposed to the Stone's home, whose home is probably has a similar layout to the Miller's home, gave Bill a sense of a coolness and an excitement of integrating himself into his neighbor's everyday surrounding. He slowly touches things, gets himself drunk in Stone's home, and doing these things gave him the sexual excitement that he later expressed to his wife when he returned back home. Later on in the story, it shows a hint of addiction as the place is being described as somewhat of a euphoric place for Bill and later on to Arlene. The place was described with cool colours such as black and blue and it even gave a vibe of a more adulterous life such as the ash tray, the hawaiin shirt, the brassiere, and the pictures. As the couples discover more and more of these items, more they are into each other. At the end, they have found their excitement while the Stones were away.