Most of us have done it at some point or another – accidentally locked ourselves out of the house.
Raymond Carver’s poem tells a quite simple ordinary story but it becomes so much more. Read it to see what he does.
He’s locked himself out and of course it’s raining and the people who have the spare key are away.
He looks through the lower windows and sees the details of his life:
Stared
inside at the sofa, plants, the table
and chairs, the stereo set-up
My coffee cup and ashtray waited for me
on the glass-topped table, and my heart
went out to them.
He feels a twinge of loss at the separation. He is locked out of his life. But it’s not the end of the world. He works at getting back in, gets a ladder, climbs onto the deck. The door is locked but he looks in and finds himself face to face with his own room, with his desk:
This is not like downstairs, I thought.
This is something else.
He is looking in at the room and the desk at which he writes and from where he often stares out of the window he is now looking through.
And it was something to look in like that, unseen,
from the deck.to be there inside, and not be there.
I don’t even think I can talk about it.
Looking in at his imaginary self, he thinks of himself thinking of people he has loved, and of harms he has done, but does not say who, or what. It is a moment of epiphany – seeing himself from the outside looking in.
I stood there for a minute in the rain
Then he breaks back into his life:
I bashed that beautiful window.
And stepped back in.
In that moment, the speaker resolves the tension between alienation and acceptance—he sees himself from the outside and accepts himeslf, warts and all.
The poem describes the experience of locking oneself out and the struggle to get back in. There’s the literal act of being “locked out” and the emotional sense of disconnection from, and eventual reconnection with, the inner self. Carver’s poem captures the estrangement from self and the wish to reconnect. It’s all very Donald Winnicott.
Winnicott’s theories—particularly on play, the “transitional object,” and the “true and false self”—are all relevant here. The speaker’s attempt to re-enter is both a literal act and a symbolic journey toward inner stability and self-acceptance.
It Happened to Me
My first November in Poughkeepsie, I locked myself out of the house.
I’d just returned from an evening meeting in Newburgh, around nine-thirty. It was dark, chilly, and beginning to drizzle.. It was the end of a fifteen-hour day. I was dog-tired, and glad to be home.
Inside, I put on slippers, and was just sitting down with a cup of tea when i realized realized I’d left something in the car. I went down to the basement garage, and the door clicked shut behind me. I was locked out – in my slippers, without a coat, no car keys, and no phone.
I’d only lived there a couple of months and didn’t know the neighbors. What to do? I started walking down toward Main Street, hoping to find a store open where I could call for help. Police? Fire department?
A few houses down, a man in a suit was heading out of a house. I approached him, tentatively, keeping back, aware of how I might be perceived. As soon as I started to speak, he picked up his pace, got into a car, clicked the locks, and drove off. A reasonable response to being approached by a bedraggled stranger in bedroom slippers wandering the streets in the rain.
On down the street and just ahead a boisterous group of young men hanging out, drinking beer, on a covered stoup. The music was loud and so were they. I walked up, and explained my dilemma. One of them called the fire department and handed me his phone. I explained, thanked him profusely, and headed back to the house. Within minutes my rescuers arrived, opened up the door and my drama was over..
Unfortunately the cup of tea was cold so i had to make another.
Looking Out, Looking In
I’ve been collecting Through the Window style paintings for ages. Here are few that came to mind, even if they don’t include actual windows.
René Magritte’s The False Mirror (1929) – is not a literal window scene but this giant eye evokes the idea of seeing oneself as if from the outside.The huge isolated eye gazes outward suggesting a window rather than a reflection. It’s a surrealist challenge to question what we think we know and see. it disturbs the universe, inviting us to see the world anew
Edward Hopper’s Office in a Small City (1953) – A solitary man seated in an office, viewed through a large window, staring out perhaps in a moment of introspection. We are the outsiders observing his moment of isolation, physically and emotionally detached from his surroundings and other people. The artist’s wife – Jo Nivison Hopper – described the painting as “the man in concrete wall.”
David Hockney’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972) – Not exactly a window painting but the water acts as a boundary, symbolically mirroring the idea of looking through a “window” at someone submerged.
Windows in the West by Avril PatonThis is the the view from the attic window at Athole Gardens overlooking Saltoun Street, Glasgow on a particlar evening in January1993 before the curtains were drawn. A sudden short heavy blizzard blew in and then was over and the sky turned pink.
Thomas Dugdale Cantrell’s ‘The Arrival of the Jarrow Marchers in London, Viewed from an Interior,’ (1936) – 207 unemployed men began a near 300 mile march to London to protest unemployment. Talk about privilege and poverty!
Lois Dodd’s Chair, Night Window (2016) An empty chair by a window and beyond the yellow lit apartments standing out in the mysterious dark.
Raymond Carver is my favourite poet and has had the biggest influence on my own work. He enabled me to find my own voice. Wonderful post. Thanks for sharing.
Would love to know some of your favourite Carver poems David.
Such an interesting writer.
Love this poem, which I hadn’t read before, and the strange sensation he describes of being an onlooker in one’s own life.
That’s exactly it.
Like presiding over you own funeral or stepping out of one’s shoes.
A twist on Robert Burns “To a Louse”
“O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
An’ ev’n devotion!”
There’s such a peaceful feel to Raymond Carver’s poem and it feels like a calm acceptance of things as they are…until it isn’t. I love it. Your own experience is almost a short story already! I loved the collection of images especially the Hopper. So many thoughts…
Thanks Maria. It’s such a simple, clever, affecting poem. One that just stays with you.
I used to tell the locked-out story in order to illustrate some moralising point or other about perceptions of strangers, fears, and prejudice.
Looking in and looking out, windows – so many extraordinary paintings have a window frame of one sort or another.
Such an interesting post – I enjoy the choice of paintings very much.
Hi Sue – One of the things that has taken me into this looking through a window them is your post
https://suegreysmithartist.wordpress.com/2023/10/25/looking-through-a-train-window/
I loved your paintings of the views of farmland between Bacchus Marsh and Ballarat with the rain and the wet windows.
It sent me off to find out more about the geography of the region – it seemed so “unAustralian” to my ignorant eye. One thing always leads to another thing.
Such an interesting post, Josie! I love Raymond Carver’s poem and am especially drawn to Windows in the West by Avril Paton.
Thanks Becky. I like that picture too. It reminds me of “Life in a boarding house” – an Eric Ravilious mural that was destroyed during the blitz. It shows the rooms of the house without the front wall so you get to see into all the rooms of the house.