The Apartment

There is always a space in sitcoms that your main character's frequent that becomes banal space. In Rules of Engagement there is the diner, in The Big Bang Theory there is the comic book shop, and in Friends there is the coffee shop. Well, in How I Met Your Mother, the obvious banal space is MacClaren's Pub but I am going to look at yet another space that this group frequents: the apartment. 


According to Dickinson, "These spaces provide the visual and the material resources with which individuals can attempt to negotiate the fragmentation and destabilization that characterize their cultural context" (2002, 10). Looking at this location as a rhetorically banal space helps us understand how this space is creating an argument and understand what the argument is. To analyze this we will look at the space through three of the five senses (sight, sound, and touch in this case), take a look at the rules of engagement and the identity of the people in the space.

http://www.home-designing.com/2013/03/floor-plans-of-homes-from-famous-tv-shows

Visually is kind of cluttered and eclectically decorated. This gives off the vibe that the apartment is not a grownup's apartment. These people are just trying to find themselves and can't afford Pottery Barn sets. Most of the big furniture stays in the apartment no matter who lives in it. When Ted lives in the apartment, there is a big red couch, a piano, a pretty decent kitchen table, and a coffee table. When Lily and Marshall live there, all of these pieces remain, and when Ted moves back in the furniture is still there.This shows how much this group shares with each other and how necessary the living space is to these friends.There are lots of warm colors with pops of bright red and orange and along with the brick fireplace it emanates warmth and acceptance of the gang.  The apartment is 2 bedroom, 1 bath which is the perfect size for two roommates but not for grownups with a family. There is always enough room for whoever needs it and the gang never starts feeling cramped at all until "The Last Forever- Part 1" (S9E23) when Lily and Marshall are expecting their third child and finally determine it is time to admit that they have outgrown the apartment. 

Ted and Robin can hear the upstairs neighbors walking around in the apartment ("Last Time in New York" (S9E3)) and also the elderly neighbors having sex ("Bagpipes" (S5E6)). We can assume the apartment must be fairly bustling because it is on the Upper Westside and right above MacClaren's Pub. Hearing the neighbors just shows how connected they all are to the things around them. This is the time in their lives that they are in New York taking on the world and being a part of it all, so they are constantly experiencing it and hearing those sounds from the apartment mean that they are still a part of that time in their lives. 

Touch involves a little more assumption. We hear Ted constantly complaining about Robin and Victoria being neat freak's and his constant need to keep the apartment clean. This is Ted being particular and taking part in periodical cleaning in the apartment. This is a metaphor for how Ted wants his love life to be. Ted wants his love life to be as close to perfect as it could be just like how he keeps the apartment. 

http://how-i-met-your-mother.wikia.com/wiki/The_Apartment

The rules of engagement in the apartment are pretty straightforward: no knocking and be comfortable. When the gang is in the apartment there is no doubt that they are comfortable. They sit on every piece of furniture, they bring their own DVD's and they are always helping themselves to the food in the kitchen. No one knocks and no one expects them to because there are no secrets in the gang. This again speaks to the closeness of the gang. The apartment is the one place they can go to where no one else can go that allows them to be open and honest without the fear of anyone else joining in on the conversation and so they are the most relaxed and at home in this space.

The people in the space are obviously the five main characters of the show. We don't see many other people being brought into the space except for a few significant others here or there like: Scooby, Victoria, Zoey, and Kevin. When people live in the apartment and it is theirs (e.g. Ted's Apartment, Lily and Marshall's Apartment) the people that live in the apartment with them are the most important people to them at that moment. When Ted and Marshall live together, they are the inseparable two. They are best bro's and nothing can tear them apart. When Marshall and Lily move out and Ted has Robin move in with him, they become the best of friends. When Ted starts being confused about his feelings for Robin again and professes his love for her and Robin moves out, he starts becoming lost because he doesn't know what to do with the empty space in his apartment which is just a visual representation for the empty space in his life. When Lily and Marshall move back in with Marvin it is their family together that make up the most important people in their lives. 

The apartment as an identity shows that the gang is at home with each other and at home in the space. The apartment has housed almost all of them for a time or two and it is a really hard decision for them to part with it at any point. To them the apartment is more than just an apartment, it is the house for their friendship. The argument of this space is that this is their home; it is the place they all connect through their memories, their physical location, and the time they spend together. This space is an effective argument for this space and can be actually seen in the finale of the show when they are having a Halloween/going away party and Robin leaves the party early.

[Lily] "We're saying good-bye to the apartment. The whole gang has to be here. 
[Robin] The gang? Do you know who the gang is to me Lily? Here's what the gang is: the gang is a married couple who I never see anymore about to have their third kid; it's my ex-husband, hitting on slutty cops right in front of me; and it's the guy I probably should have ended up with with the beautiful mother of his child.
 [Lily] Oh...oh, oh, so... so what? This is all just over then? Our whole friendship is just over? 
[Robin] We'll always be friends. It's just never going to be how it was. It can't be. And that doesn't have to be a sad thing. Look, there's so much wonderful stuff happening in all of our lives right now. 

We've more than enough to be grateful for. But the five of us hanging out at MacClaren's, being young and stupid...it's just not one of those things. That period is over. Moving out of the apartment forever shows the changing of the group altogether, therefore proving this rhetorical argument effective.

References

 Dickinson, G. (2002). Joe's rhetoric: Finding authenticity at starbucks. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 32(4), 5-27. doi:10.1080/02773940209391238