The Box Man

People sitting by themselves at lunch, people who never go out with their so-called friends, and people who avoid association with anyone unless necessary. All of these are examples of individuals who one may try to help because of an automatic assumption that they are lonely and in need of a friend. This assumption is flawed, as their is both chosen and unchosen solitude, as expressed in Barbara Ascher’s essay, “The Box Man,” from her book Playing After Dark. Through the juxtaposition of the homeless man and the two lonesome women, accompanied by an admirative tone used in regard to the homeless man and a tone of sympathy toward the women, Ascher expresses the idea that one’s material standing in society is irrelevant to one’s state of mind
She speaks of how she longs to live like the children in her favorite book, The Boxcar Children, “never worried” about their “next meal” and to be “ingenious with simple things,” similar to the Box Man (9,10). She almost expresses envy toward the boxman’s content attitude even though he is homeless. Ascher further explains that the Box Man should not be confused with lonely individuals, such as the woman in the coffeeshop or the woman who lives across from the author, who both appear to have their material necessities but live bland lives of unchosen solitude, seemingly waiting for someone to approach them. She conveys a sense of pity toward the women, also acknowledging that people like them are everywhere. She juxtaposes the women and the Boxman through the use of diction which expresses the perceived prolonging of time and the uneventfulness of the women’s life, and diction which brings the Box Man into the story with a pleasant image. For example, she explains how the woman has a “vacancy of expression” and “drags” her food out, splitting her crackers “first in halves and then halves of halves” (14, 13). She also uses words such as “exile,” and “outcasts,” to convey the unchosen solitude of the two women. Furthermore, the highly detailed description of the picture of the family the woman in the coffee shop receives highlights the possible lack of those things in her life. Ascher in
The ideas which Ascher presents in this essay are applicable to everyone’s lives, whether it is learning about not judging people or understanding solitude as a whole, making it timeless. No matter what day and age, there will always be people who are living in solitude, whether they have chosen to or not. The Box Man, a homeless person, teaches us a very valuable lesson; find happiness in yourself, as in the end we must find a “friend in our own voice,” and accept that life is a “solo voyage” (20,