Carmen Maria Machado’s story “Inventory” easily could have been turned into a longer piece of apocalyptic fiction, telling the story of the narrator’s life as she tries to survive on her own. Instead, Machado chose to write this story as a list of the people with whom the narrator has had romantic or sexual relationships. Though these relationships span a number of years, they are all described and contained within ten pages. By choosing to describe these relationships in a list, devoting only a paragraph (if that) to each, Machado easily shows readers the narrator’s loneliness and her fear of intimacy.
We know that list-making is a habit for the narrator:
When the notice comes over the radio that the virus had somehow reached Nebraska, I realized I had to go east, and so I did. I left the garden, the plot where my dog was buried, the pine table where I’d anxiously made so many lists — trees that began with m: maple, mimosa, mahogany, mulberry, magnolia, mountain ash, mangrove, myrtle; states that I had lived in: Iowa, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York– leaving unreadable jumbles of letters imprinted in the soft wood. (39)
The word “anxiously” suggests that the narrator makes these lists to calm herself, which makes sense when she is literally in the middle of an epidemic most likely leading to the apocalypse. A common theme of post-apocalyptic works is that of a character having to survive on her own, which is also what is happening in Machado’s story. Therefore, the narrator making a list to remember the physical touch and intimacy makes sense as a way to combat the loneliness of the world she is now living in.
However, we can also see the narrator’s fear of intimacy and getting attached in a world where people lose loved ones so quickly:
One man. Six months later, in my postdivorce haze. I met him at the funeral for the last surviving member of his family. I was grieving, he was grieving…. In the master bedroom, I caught my reflection in the vanity mirror as I rode him, and the lights were off and our skin reflected silver from the moon and when he came in me he said, “Sorry, sorry.” He died a week later, by his own hand. I moved out of the city, north. (37-38)
Many other paragraphs end with the narrator leaving, running away from the fear of getting close to someone again only to lose them.
The format of this story is the perfect way to show these conflicting emotions: not wanting to be lonely but also being scared to get close to someone. The title of the story itself, “Inventory,” is so impersonal, as is the format of a list in general. However, the narrator remembers little details of all of these people and circumstances, showing that she had attachment to them.
I completely agree with both of these stories having to do with loneliness. They both constantly have the narrator fleeing out of fear. Whether that be intimacy issues or being afraid your husband will untie your ribbons. Nothing lasts for either of these two narrators, they had their moments but they end up alone or dead either way. Both stories being solely about sex interested me too. Why do you think that is?
I agree with that it is a list formatting and how they had little details of she is deciding to remember these people by. I think this begins to lead to the thought of how a store does their inventory of what they have. It is like she is taking an inventory of the people she has meet and had sexual encounters with.
The narrator is lonely in an apocalyptic setting; who wouldn’t be? While it is impersonal to tell about your sexual partners in the form of a grocery list, it is a form of protection against pain. When you are alone, you are left with only your memories to keep you alive. But with those memories come pain, so the narrator makes the memories as impersonal as can be. However, one memory can hold a wealth of details, and though each is only a paragraph, they reveal so much about the narrator. With regard to both this story and “The Husband Stitch” being about sex, I think it stems from the double standard that men may have numerous sexual partners, but if a woman does, she is considered a whore. Furthermore, sex is an expression and independence of the body, both of which women were denied for centuries.