The story The Relieve Box does not only talk about one’s addiction over technology but one’s attempt to escape reality for the purpose of running away from problems and the chaos around them (Boyle). Too often, people get preoccupied over the things that they do that they start to neglect the responsibilities that they have. The characters of the story allow themselves to be drawn into something in order to divert their attention from feeling pain, frustration, regret and disappointment (Nahin). Often, they do this to delay any possibilities there is to be responsible and to accountability over things and situations that have fallen out of place (Toomey). The character in the story, i.e. the narrator, had an estranged relationship with her daughter. It was nothing too personal perhaps because he was trying to avoid any possibility that he needs to hear how miserable she was feeling or how she feels about the situation they were at.
The narrators of the story both connect through them experiencing alienation. The experience of alienation was similar in the sense that it was both uses to run away from their responsibilities. It was an escape out of reality because they wanted to go back to a time when they had to worry about nothing. Both were trying to relieve part of their lives from when nothing is important and necessary. In the ending, readers get to experience an unconventional ending where the narrator finds himself back to reality, and it was the past meeting the future and the past fading slowing.
If the research were to be made on the theme of this story, it would have to be one’s attempt to drown themselves into the illusion that reality does not exist. Perhaps something about trans and one’s attempt to travel back to time and relieve a moment from the past that would make someone experience how it is to be alive again.
Work Cited
Boyle, T. Coraghessan. "Fiction: The Relive Box." 17 March 2014. The New Yorker . 29 June 2014 <http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2014/03/17/140317fi_fiction_boyle>.
Nahin, Paul. Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction. New York, New York: Springer-Verlag New York Inc, 2001.
Toomey, David. The New Time Travelers: A Journey to the Frontiers of Physics. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007.
