"Neighbors" by Raymond Carver

Minimalism

To me minimalism means to emphasize the story by describing the characters actions. It seems to be more about the characters behavior towards things within the story than their emotions.

Some examples of this is Bill seemed to want to be so much like his neighbors that he would go through their things, eat their food and try on their clothes. Both Bill and his wife seemed to envy their neighbors and wanted to be like them. It seemed to excite them when they would spend time in their neighbor’s apartment. Then at the end of the story when Arlene forgot the key in the neighbor’s apartment it was like they were being shut out of life.