Basic Trope: A character lives inside a cardboard box and considers it their home.
- Straight: Alice is walking down the street and sees Bob, a ragged homeless man, huddled inside a cardboard box.
- Exaggerated: The cardboard box is so small that Bob has to lie on the ground and shimmy into it. The box only covers part of his head, with the rest of his body completely exposed to the elements.
- Downplayed: Bob lives in a small shed. A permanent structure, with some protection from the elements, but no place to live.
- Justified: Bob lives inside a cardboard box because he lost his job, the homeless shelters are full, and someone stole his tent.
- Inverted:
- Alice meets a homeless man named Bob who takes her to his living space, the spacious attic of an apartment building. Bob lives a rather extravagant lifestyle as the owners and tenants are unaware of Bob's presence.
- A cardboard box lives inside Bob.
- Subverted: Bob approaches a cardboard box as if introducing it to Alice, but instead motions to the normal apartment building next to it.
- Double Subverted: Alice points at a cardboard box and asks Bob if that is his home. Bob denies this, saying that he would never live in such a place. He then says his home is the larger box next to it.
- Parodied: Bob mentions that even though his home is a cardboard box, he still has to pay rent on it.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob lives in a hobo camp, in which some people live in tents or other, more practical shelters, and some live in cardboard boxes.
- Averted: The hobo camp Bob lives in is all tents and no cardboard boxes. Cardboard boxes are never mentioned.
- Enforced: The cardboard box used is packaging for a refrigerator and has a logo for a product placement on it.
- Lampshaded: Alice is surprised that Bob actually lives in a cardboard box, commenting on how she didn't think people actually did that.
- Invoked: Bob says he lives in a cardboard box because "loads of homeless people live in boxes."
- Exploited: When Alice cannot find Bob, she checks cardboard boxes in the nearby alley because she figures that was where he would be.
- Defied: Alice refuses to go down the alley because she sees a lot of cardboard boxes and does not want to be bothered by homeless people.
- Discussed: After meeting Bob, Alice sarcastically remarks that she has places to be, and Bob has cardboard boxes to lie in somewhere.
- Implied: Alice has noted that Bob looks disgruntled at work every day, and his clothes are wet and smelly. She sees him coming out of an alley one morning with a cardboard box in the background but it is never expanded upon.
- Deconstructed: Alice points out that cardboard boxes are not very sturdy, and that rain would just soak right through, making it a terribly impractical home.
- Played for Laughs:
- Bob takes immense pride in his cardboard home and asks Alice to "come in," revealing a makeshift table with Bob pouring her a cup of tea.
- Repo men take the cardboard box away.
Back to Cardboard Box Home.
