Living with Strangers Essay

Living with strangers

It can be a staggering experience to move from a small town to a big city far away from the quietness and the friendly faces everywhere, to actually being there. A culture shock is expected, but it can be hard to adapt, when your whole world is turned upside down. It also challenges how we interfere with other people, and what unwritten norms the new place have to offer. An example of this could be the piece by Siri Hustvedt, which is called “living with strangers” in where she explains her own personal experience, on what it is like to move from a small town to one of the largest and most populated cities in the world.

The essay gives us a look into the world of a new yorker, from an outsiders point of view. The essay takes us through her move, with a short introduction and then with an observing eye watching and commenting on the events, which also is typical for the essay genre. The essay was posted in the New York Times, where the main subscribers ofcourse are the new yorkers themselves. Siri gives them a personal touch several times in the essay, by naming places that only new yorkers could describe, or people who have spent a great deal of time and knows about the culture could have known. “ at the Brooklyn Academy of Music...my husband and i walked down the stairs at the Atlantic Avenue station in Brooklyn(Line 36-37)” people from around the world don't know what it is like in that part of New York, so she cherishes and honours being a New Yorker. Secondly this creates ethos because of the naming of these streets and places. It creates authority surrounding her observations and proves that she actually have been there and observed it thoroughly. Her observations makes the essay relevant for the readers, and creates a trustworthiness, that proves her validity for the reader and makes them connect with the author. In the same quotation, she uses the word “i” which shows us that the this is a personal experience and which states that it is herself, her feelings and her opinions are current, which concludes that pathos is used in the text.

Urban living and city living is the main subject of the essay, where she describes the impersonal greetings in Minnesota “ a dull, muttered uninflected “hi”(Line 2)”  which is the exact opposite of “ pretend it isn't happening rule” which she also talks about a lot in the essay. The urban way is a formality of speech, because the town is so small and like many other small town, everybody knows everybody. It is polite to do so, but also very impersonal. In New York they don't even make the effort to be nice, ofcourse if they would have to say hi to everyone the the streets, their jaws would fall of. But to actively avoid contact and any confrontation, that is on another level of ignorance. “ Her fellow passengers treated the man is if he were an invisible mute( Line 87-88) this is one of three examples Siri gives as examples of the unwritten rule. In this example a man that sits besides her daughter in the train, breaks the law of silence, which gives Sophie (her daughter) a hope for solidarity in the streets of NY. The rule can also be very useful in an assertive way. Siri encourages the readers to do what the man on the train did. Firstly for breaking the ice, and making her feel like a human again, to communicate and interact with each other. The other example Siri gives revolves around her husbands encounter on a subway car, where the pretend rule were in his favor. The rule is peaceful and doesn't start any conflict, it doesn’t start at lot of talking, and there not so many arguments which could lead to violence. The man who entered the subway car was aggressive and directly aggravating, when the man yelled at the small blond haired man. “Taking action may be viewed as courageous or merely stupid, depending on the circumstances and your point of view(Line 53-55)” This quote sums up, why he didn't act and why the pretend rule was why he didn't act” and your point of view” this refers to the pretend rule, because if this would have happened in the urban areas, the outcome would probably have been different because of their point of view on human interaction. This also emphasizes that fact that in the bottom line, Siri calls the New Yorkers wimps, for not daring to act. Taking the chance to other people could get you into a fight, or a verbal beating in a subway bus, but it could also lead to getting a new friend or a nice conversation. She also points out the loneliness that you feel when you walk the streets of New York city, and when you live strictly by the pretend law, life can seem dull.