Living With Strangers
Sometimes it can be a leap in the dark to move from a small city to a big city. You start somewhere new; an unknown place filled with new experiences, challenges and strangers. It can be overwhelming at first, and it might as well take some time to grow accustomed to the new culture and what the city has to offer. The situation can especially be difficult to someone who comes from a city, where one is used to live in closely encircling. As an example of this kind of situation is Siri Hustvedt’s essay ‘Living with Strangers’, which is written in 2002
Hustvedt describes in her essay her move from rural Minnesota to New York City in 1978 and how suddenly norms and rules change for her. In Minnesota it is the custom to greet everyone you meet on the road, even though you do not know the person. If you pass someone in silence, you will be considered as discourteous and it can lead to accusations of snobbery. This is the worst and rudest possible thing you can do and it gets compared as a sin in the egalitarian state.
A good place to start is the title of the essay ‘Living With Strangers’, because it sums up the thesis in the text and Hustvedt’s point with the text. The title refers to a major problem in every city - whether it is a big or small one, and it is because the society that we live in now has changed and is still changing. The late modern society is characterized by the fact, that we no longer are bound by old traditions and habits. We are instead living in our own little bubble and we consider it opposite the people in Minnesota rude for someone to perforate it and talk to us. It is like a mentality we have that does not change. Although we are surrounded by many people and always are in intimating contact with people, it is still as we are living with strangers and there is like a wall between us and them – that keeps us isolated