Analyse af Siri Hustvedts essay 'Living with Strangers'

This paper will be an analysis and comment on Siri Hustvedt’s essay Living With Strangers, with a focus on the genre and the attitude towards urban living as presented in the text. In Siri Hustvedt’s essay Living with strangers, she discusses the social aspects of the urban life compared to the suburban life, and how the ideal urban city life should be.

In Siri Hustvedt’s essay, she presents her impression of how the urban life is compared to the suburban life. Hustvedt does this by referring to several personal experiences. She specifically focuses on three stories, “the bathrobe lady, the fanatical preacher, and the spitter” (P. 7 l. 46), which according to her describe the way of living in New York, where people are illustrated as being selfish and egoistic. Hustvedt is especially fascinated by the unwritten “Pretend it isn’t happening”-law, which she uses to describe the behavior of the people in New York when they are among strangers. Regarding the unwritten law, she mentions a story from a friend of hers, where a woman, wearing only a bathrobe, creates a strange scene by a bus stop, but surprisingly no one seemed to care since everybody was following the Pretend-law. In Hustvedt’s essay, she concludes that communication and interaction among strangers are necessary to maintain the charm and stimulus of the city, otherwise it “would be unbearably dull” (P. 8 l. 105). Hustvedt is certain that everybody has “unexpected depths of intelligence or heart or just plain sweetness” (P. 8 l. 109) when people decide to break through the Pretend-law. According to Hustvedt, “a brief exchange with an unknown person marks you forever, not because it is profound but because it is uncommonly vivid” (P. 8 ll. 112-113). Therefore, she thinks that the present way of living the urban life and obeying the Pretend-law, results in a boring and depressing life and that people instead should break through the Pretend-law to achieve the desired vividness.