Theme and Literary Analysis

                                                                             Themes:

There are two common themes present in Raymond Carver's short story, "Boxes". The first theme is the feeling of disconnection and the feeling of despair. At the beginning of the story when we meet the narrator and his mother, we realize they have a distant relationship. The narrator lives far away from his mother and he gets an unexpected letter from his mother saying she is moving to his town, Longview, Washington. When the narrator gets these letters he writes back telling her she shouldn't come. The name of the town Longview represents the distant relationship the narrator has with his mother. The theme of disconnection also connects to the relationship between the mother and Jill, his partner. Jill makes it clear that she doesn't like spending time with his mother. The narrator feels this way too, but he also feels like he should spend time with her as she doesn't have much time with her left.

The other theme is the feeling of despair which the narrator constantly feels during the story. At the very beginning of the story, the narrator and Jill go to his mothers for dinner because she wants to have a farewell dinner as she is moving back to California. The narrator's emotions change at this dinner as his mother brings up the topic of death. "I hate this g.d. place. I don’t know why I moved here.  I wish I could just die and get it over with" (p. 507) At the dinner she brings up death and also how happy she is to finally be moving away from this "awful" town. Here he realizes how unhappy she is and he starts feeling hopeless because he knows that he probably won't see her alive again after she moves away for good.

                                                                         Literary Analysis 
Raymond Carver's works tend to have lots of symbols and the story "Boxes" is no exception. One symbol is the car. The car is usually seen as something that connects people together but the author transforms it into a device of disconnection. The car is used in the story at the beginning when the narrator is driving over to his mothers house for dinner. The car comes up again at the end when the mother is moving away. She gets into her car and drives off leaving her son behind forever.

Another symbol that is present in the story is the symbol of Cigarettes. Raymond Carver smoked throughout his life and he ended up dying from it. The narrator likes to smoke and his addiction is very present when he and Jill go over to his mother's house for dinner. "I open my eyes and bring my head up and I reach for a cigarette... 'See what I mean, You're driving him crazy'. He's going crazy with worry over you."(p.512) At that dinner he has at least four cigarettes and Jill realizes how stressed out his mother is making him.