Raymond Carver's Boxes
There are many types of relationships, though all are complicated and both parties of the relationship must bend over backward for one another. In Boxes, Carver shows how difficult it is for the son to cope with bringing closure to his mother’s relationship though he still loves her. The mother moves to be near her son; however, she starts packing to move again a while later; not finding the relationship she once had with her son. Through the short story “Boxes,” Raymond Carver makes evident the difficulties of bringing closure to a relationship.
From the mother’s point of view, Carver displays the closure of their relationship when he describes how the mother moved to where her son lived, only to have all her boxes packed a few months later, ready to move again. “Within a day or two of deciding to move, she’d packed her things into boxes. That was last January. Or maybe it was February. Anyway, last winter sometime. Now it’s the end of June. Boxes have been sitting around inside her house for months” (411). So the mother has had her belongings packed from January to June, over 6 months. His mother has been living in boxes for over half a year. In real meaning, the mother wants to have that special mother son relationship; however, she feels like he is not giving her enough attention and spending enough time with her. So she decides to leave. But she still stays 6 months with her boxes packed, because she does not want to close the relationship with her son. The mother assumed by being with her son their relationship would help her enjoy the place where she was now. And she would feel and sense of belonging and be able to stop moving around to so many different places. But after she had stayed ...
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...lizes that he must bring closure to their relationship even though he loves her a great deal. He even knows that he will not be going back to Los Angeles ever again, and when she left it would be the last time he would ever see her.
Carver gets his theme of closure of a relationship clearly across to his readers. From the candle, the boxes, and their relationship throughout this piece of work this is well displayed. Especially, with the conclusion of the story with the symbolism of the light. The mother and son depicted in this story are seen often in real life. Incidences often occur with people bringing closure to the relationships they once had with their friends due to giving up on dealing with their complaints or negativity. This Carver story should be an ideal example for anyone who is caught in the same situations the main characters of Boxes were caught in.
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.... He is a fool and doesn't see that she 'played' him and used him to satisfy one of her desires.
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dealt with and the individual moves on. Susan Philips and Lisa Carver explored this grieving
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