The Box Man Essay

The Relation Between Loneliness and Happiness
In Barbara Lazear Ascher’s essay, The Box Man the author writes about seeing life through the eyes of a homeless man, old lady and a cat woman without knowing much about their actual lives. She describes the homeless man, also known as “The Box Man” as being happy and contempt with his loneliness, where as the old lady and the cat women are portrayed as being quite the opposite. The essay circulates around the difference between chosen and unchosen loneliness. I believe that the author successful in portraying the different ways people view solitude, furthermore her use of language and imagery was able to paint a vivid picture of characters. This helped establishing a distinct tone for each character.

Ascher starts of by describing “The Box Man” as being well organized and clean.

Which is quite different then the way many people view homelessness. Ascher also uses a lot of words that have positive connotations such as “lucky”, ”joy” and “faith” when describing him and his surroundings, which helps to illustrate a certain picture of the homeless man and the way he views his solitude. I mostly agree with her portrayal of The Box Man, because I can relate with the fact that loneliness is not a reason for unhappiness. For me personally being alone has never been a source of unhappiness in fact I actually find my alone time to be quite refreshing and is what I long for after a long day of interacting with people.
The author then goes on to describing loneliness in a contrasting way. She describes loneliness in the eyes of the old lady and the cat women. The tone of the essay changes drastically from being positive to quite hunting. The author describes the women in the café as being miserable. The use of phrases such as “crumbled Kleenex”, “drags it out” and “burst into salty splinters” when describing regular things emphasize the authors point as to how unhappy she truly

was.
The way Ascher describes the cat lady’s life is somewhat similar to the way the another portrayed the old woman’s life in the sense that they both had possessions however they felt lonely on the inside. The old lady described as having “A crystal chandelier in the dining room and matching Chinese lamps…six cats” however she still feels unhappy. This made me think about how happiness isn’t about having everything, but it’s about finding the little things in life that make you feel happy. The box man found his happiness living alone in a box. Whereas the other two characters have found a source of happiness yet. I believe that I have been looking for happiness in the wrong places and
this essay will make me look for happiness in different places.
To conclude, the author’s use of language and ability to create a different tone for each character made it clear. The different ways people are able to view solitude. Ascher was also able to show the different ways that people are able to find their happiness and I hope to one day to find my happiness the same way the box man did