How does the author explore the Effects of the Murder in “The House Behind”?

In the short story “The House Behind” recounting a murder that took place between two houses, the author uses the motif of the trashcan, the distinct shift in residences’ behavior and smell imagery to explore its effect. Through detailing the increased anxiety between the pair of houses that differ socially and economically and residents’ deteriorating spirits, the author emphasizes the consequences an event can have on those involved.

The motif of the trashcan is symbolically used in “The House Behind” to express the growing unease between the house in front and the house behind after the murder. The narrator, a resident of the house behind, states: “Tenants in the front house are high civil servants, while the house behind is filled with shopkeepers, salesmen, retired post-office employees…” (1). The narrator then continues: “the trashcans were always a source of embarrassment” (1). Upon the murder, “the atmosphere has sharpened: the tenants from the house in front are afraid to empty their trash” (1). Clearly, the house in front and the house behind had always— even prior to the murder— been distinguished by their contrasting social and economic states. Though residents in the back house “can’t really blame the people in the front house for their wealth”, the well-established disparities triggered the “ill will that has always existed between the two houses” (1). Thus situated in the courtyard— “a sort of no-man’s-land” (3)— the trashcan that is shared between the two houses is symbolic of a shameful association between the two. After the murder that just so inconveniently occurred in the courtyard, the tenants “(would) not enter the courtyard (to empty their trash) if another tenant (was) already there” (1). This shows the increased mistrust and anxiety between the two houses. Thereby, the trashcan becomes symbolic of the worsened relationship between the two houses after the murder. So it’s evident that with the use of motif, the author has allusively stressed on the stronger sense of dissociation between the two houses resulted from the murder.

Other than the motif of the trashcan the author also identifies changes in residents’ behavior in the house behind to explore their loss of confidence after the murder. When noting the consequences of the murder the narrator says:

The older Lamartine sister, who used to keep her door open a crack and listen to conversations going on in the hallway— occasionally becoming so excited that she stuck her sharp nose in the crack and threw out a comment or two— was now (after the murder) no longer seen at all except on Sundays…mass with a blue veil thrown over her head. (3)

Evidently, because of the accumulative sense of inferiority that has always been felt by residents of the house behind towards those in the other house, “(they) all assumed responsibility for the crime”. This provoked the residents to “(lose) the last traces of (their) self respect before the people in the house in front” (3). And as a result, their pride was replaced with “faces gray with shame” (4). Their declining dignity made them “surly and mean”, and caused mistrust and uneasiness in the house behind. The author has adopted the idea of contrasting residents’ behavior before and after the murder to accentuate their sudden loss of self-respect and change in attitude towards other tenants. So it is seen through the characterization of residents in the house behind that not only did the murder affect the relationship between the two houses, but also the inner state of individuals in the house behind.

In “The House Behind”, the author further uses olfactory imagery to disclose the disintegrating spirits of residents of the house behind. Upon the murder, some obvious changes occur in the house behind, some of which the narrator describes:

There was no point in pretending any longer…My neighbor…Mme Bac, left her laundry out for days, in all weathers, until the sour smell of it rose to me where I sat….a musty odor filled the hallways (3-4)

As shown, the house in front and behind have always been very aware of their differences in social and economic class. The tenants of the house behind have always been “oppressed by it: (they) feel the difference” (1), in which they respond to these differences by “(wearing) the rags of their dignity proudly” (3) to conceal their shame. Yet upon the murder, residents in the house felt there was no need to feign this pride or spirit anymore, or assume their “shabby tidiness, their caustic morning gossip against the people from the house in front…” (4). By detailing the increasing sour smell in the house behind, the author uses smell imagery to metaphorically express residents’ deteriorating spirits and the sense of their decay after the murder took place. So it’s clear with the author’s use of imagery that the murder left an even deeper impression on residents of the house behind: it intensified their sense of oppression.

In “The House Behind”, the aggravated relationship of the house behind and the house in front, the deteriorating confidence and spirits of residents upon the murder is studied through motif, characterization and smell imagery. Without doubt, a single event can carry destructive consequences on those directly involved, like M. Martin’s wife, M. Martin himself, and the gentle woman he killed. Equally though, it causes deeper, collective and perhaps longer lasting impacts on those indirectly involved: the residents in the house in front and the house behind are such victims.