Themes
Alcohol plays a part in all of the situations with the characters. Alcohol is seen to have negative effect on the lives of all of the characters. Especially with the character of Sheila who passes out on the porch during the party. When the narrator takes Donna to the spade bar, the alcohol plays a part in the scene by setting the tone of the scene as being "underground".
The Vitamins can also be interpreted as being metaphors for alcohol. The narrator is seen to be drinking alcohol throughout the story and the vitamins may represent the negative effects played out in the life of his wife, Patti. Patti constantly thinks about vitamins in much the way that an alcoholic thinks about drinking. Patti confides to the narrator that she feels suffocated by vitamins, and that she wants to escape from vitamins. These feelings are similar to ones that an alcoholic feels and in the end, the vitamins are seen to be destroying the marriage.
Read more about this topic: Vitamins (short Story)
Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)