Will You Please Be Quiet Please By Raymond Carver Analysis

Raymond Carver is a popular American short story writer. Carver’s short stories consisted in a collection that all connect in one way or another. For example, in the collection, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? , all of the short stories are a continuation of the previous short story. Raymond Carver writes each story in a way that they all relate with a twist. He makes his readers think and figure out the hidden clues in each story. Carver’s main subject in majority of his work focused on middle-class citizens, which in a way was a mirror image of his life. “His style has also been described as Dirty realism, which connected him with a group of writers in the 1970s and 1980s. …These were writers who focused on sadness and loss in the everyday lives of ordinary people” (Gallagher). The short stories, “Fat”, “Neighbors”, and “The Idea”, have similarities based on one’s fascination over someone else’s life, sexual …show more content…
This short story is based on a couple that desires to live another couple’s life. Bill and Arlene Miller are a couple that lives next door to Jim and Harriet Stone. They have a happy marriage, yet they envy their neighbors, the Stones’. Bill and Arlene seem to be disappointed with where their lives are right now. They compare themselves to the Stones’, because they believe Harriet and Jim Stone are more successful than they are. Bill and Arlene are so fascinated by their neighbors’ life that they take the first opportunity to test what it would be like to live their life as the Stones’ for a couple of days. They take full advantage of the opportunity when The Stones’ go on a trip and ask the Millers to watch over their apartment, feed the cat and water the plants. The Miller’s fascination of their neighbors is so profound that they snoop around the whole apartment, and even engage in strange sexual behavior such as cross