Social laziness

- April 22, 2009

A common idea has been established in all our minds. It has been expressed in books, movies, plays and even in life. Lazy men sit and watch TV on the living room couch. Of course this isn’t what all lazy men do, exceptions exist and each person reacts in different ways but this is definitely a common characteristic. This attitude can be seen in men on Sundays and resting days, but it can also happen when they’ve got nothing else to do, for example when they have no work. That is what happened in Carvers short story, “That evening he got back on the sofa. He began spending all his time there, as if, she thought, it was the thing he was supposed to do now that he no longer had any work.”… “It’s like he lives there, Sandy thought.” (Carver, Cathedral p.36) The main character lost his job and even though he did go to try to get a new one, he became completely useless. Instead of finding something to do with his spare time, like helping out with something around the house(fixing pipes, resetting the roof, even helping with weeding the garden) he just laid down to rot. He didn’t even tried going to the gym or kept on reading his book, he even stopped sleeping with his wife on their bed. He began to “live” on the sofa.
His wife was understandably irritated with his behavior. She had to work for both so they would get some money and he wouldn’t help her with anything. Then there was this situation in which the refrigerator died, and he didn’t even notice. He was there all day and he wasn’t even useful enough to notice the mess. And so, with their freezer dead, the only possibility they had to make things better was to get a new one, and that was when he started complaining because he didn’t have a job , but really, he never even went really looking for one. And then, his wife suggests an auction and she’s doing everything she can to make things better and she’s trying to get the positive side out of the situation and he doesn’t even eat the pork chops she made him (they didn’t really sound good, but still). I guess this story is therefore showing and making fun of a typical situation plus it is showing sexist behavior. It shows how the man has become lazy while the woman does all the work and how it is actually accepted and considered normal. It also shows that there is lots of unemployment but that people don’t really try to get a job and it also shows how many people live this situation since the man says he saw lots of people when he went to the state office. So it could even be relating to the current world crisis. The economy is going through a hard moment and situations like this will become more and more common.