Living with Strangers

Living With Strangers

Every kind of society has its own unwritten roles. Whether it is a simple "hi" to the people you meet on your way, or if it is the exact opposite. This statement is what Siri Hustvedt's essay Living With Strangers deals with, through her own experiences through her urban life in New York City.

The essay is divided in three main parts, where Hustvedt firstly gives the reader her personal story about moving from the country to the city. She lives in the heart of New York surrounded by people, but everyone is a stranger to her: "I found myself in intimate contact with people I didn't know, my body pressed so tightly against them, I could smell their hair oils, perfumes, and sweat". This points the fact that she is not use to this physical contact with people she doesn't know and that the contact is too much for her. The use of different adjectives in this sentence is also frequent, which makes the situation seem more real to the reader. She continues the essay with the unwritten New Yorker rule, of pretending it didn't happen. In the next part Hustvedt comes with examples of the rule, to make the reader understand her point and to prove her statement of unwritten rules.

One of the examples in the essay is where Hustvedt and her husband want to sit on a bench, where a hostile man spits against them when he leaves the bench. Although her husband almost feels forced to act, he doesn't because of the fact that it would be strange according to the unwritten pretend it didn't happen rule. As she then points "It is usually better to treat the unpredictable among us as ghosts, wandering phantoms who play out their lonely narratives for an au-dience that appears to be deaf, dumb, and blind." This is what people usually do in the city, to avoid causing any unnecessary attention and to avoid unnecessary interaction with strangers. Referring to the fact that all people in the city are an audience to peoples unpredictable acts, is an example of a This passage also uses symbolism, when using the symbols ghosts, phantoms and the adjectives deaf, dumb and blind. The unpredictable among us are better, according to Hustvedt, to treat as invisibles and thereby pretend that you didn't se them, like a ghost or a phantom. Appearing to be deaf, dump or blind is acting arrogant or snobbish as Hustvedt points it, which can be seen as a sin and thereby referring to a religious view. Just like she point out in the first paragraph: "it could lead to accusations of snobbery - the worst possible sin in my small corner of the egalitarian state."

The last part of the essay is a discussion to the alternatives to the pretend it didn't happen rule, where Hustvedt reflects about how you should life an urban life. This part is the longest, because it is what makes the story an essay and thereby