Living With strangers First rule if in doubt: “PRETEND IT ISN? T HAPPENING. ” (p. 1/l . 20) [pic] Siri Hustvedt writes in a tone that is warm, humouring and ironical. The tone she writes in keeps you interested all the way through the essay, that is something that is quite unique and many might like it because of the fact that the topic of the essay has a very large target audience. Many other writers that were given the same task to explain the experiences and life in an urban city would probably write the essay in a more negative and judging tone than Siri Hustvedt has done.
Even though some of the things she writes about, like how New Yorkers ignore some of the things they experience, how they can seem a bit unfriendly and the extremely passive way they handle problems, could easily be described much more negatively than it is in this case. I think it can be hard for people who have not experienced the urban life style to understand that you have to change to live successfully in an urban society, because the society in the city is very different than in smaller towns, in the city you just have to survive and hope for the best.
The level of speed in the city is much higher and the streets are cold and hard. The streets and subways are not pleasant places to travel, the citizens of New York just want to get from one place to another as fast as humanly possible. Traveling in New York is no joyride. The things that can seem rude to outsiders, is probably just everyday life for the New Yorkers (not meant in a negative way).
The Essay on City Life Vs Urban Life
Country Life versus City Life Have you ever wondered how people live in the country versus how people live in the city? The country lifestyle and the city lifestyle have a lot of differences, so I saw them as work, . Let me tell about these The first difference is work. Both of them people usually work, but how they work different. To begin with, farmers work outside and harvest. Employee of the ...
On the subway, most people are strangers to each other, but once in a while, we get some of these strange stories like the one with the wild-eyed-preacher, the one with the spitting plastic-bag-man, the one with the token-less-bathrobe-lady, the one with the cigarette-contrast-conflict, the one with the ogling-admirer-declaration, or the one with the drunken-dinner-date. The New Yorkers do not want people to draw unnecessary attention to them selves. Two main questions are asked in the essay and are “When is it time to act? and if you find an answer to the first question, you can then ask “How to act? “. Siri Hustvedt is all through the essay searching for the answers to those two questions, because acting in complicated situations can really make a difference and I think a lot of other New Yorkers secretly ask the same questions. In the story of the ogling-admirer-declaration, we see how acting can make a big difference and in this case we really see the positive effect it can have, when the man comments on the situation and lifts the spirit of the young girl.
We do not really get an answer to the two questions, taking action is described “Taking action may be viewed as courageous or merely stupid, depending on the circumstances and your point of view. ” -(p. 2/l. 53-54).
Two of the stories we are told in the essay could, if one had taken a wrong step, have escalated and ended up in a fight. The stories about the spitting plastic-bag-man and cigarette-contrast-conflict could easily have ended differently if maybe there would have been just a little bit more saliva on the pants knee or if the cigarette-smoking-man have had a later stop.
The fact that the genre is an essay, combined with her background of both living in rural Minnesota and urban New York gives her a great advantage, because she has an insight in both societies and can therefore, contrary to most of all people who comment on the essay, be objective and therefore do not give a close-minded opinion to the theme of living in urban New York City. She also uses a lot of adjectives to describe her experiences, “A dull, muttered, uninflected “hi” was entirely acceptable”-(p. 1/l. -3), “On the sidewalk, I was jostled, bumped, and elbowed as I negotiated the crowds. “-(p. 1/l. 14), “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. “-(p. 2/l. 50-52).
The Essay on Renaissance Man Sir Walter
Renaissance Man The Renaissance Man, Sir Walter Raleigh, is acclaimed to be one of the greatest poets, explorers, and soldiers during the Renaissance era. Raleigh was born in 1554 in Hayes Burton, Devonshire, England to Walter Raleigh of F ardell and Katherine Gilbert (Raleigh, Internet). Raleigh fought in the Wars of the Religion in France on the French Protestant side in about 1569. Afterwards, ...
The many adjectives make her argument stronger, more believable and realistic. Globalization and industrialization have lead to urbanization as we know it today. The life style of the citizens of the big urban cities is different rom any other people in the world, because there is so many more people than in the average towns, people have to adapt to urban life if they have any intentions of functioning successfully in the urban cities. Only New Yorkers understand the urban life in The Concrete Jungle. “And because no matter who you are, if you believe in yourself and your dream, New York will always be the place for you. ” – Michael Bloomberg Sune Lovig Espersen – Lemvig Gymnasium 2. d -17. september 2012 ———————–
This rule is the unwritten rule of New York and other big urban cities, and it means that if something unexpected, embarrassing, insulting or strange happens, you should rather pretend it is not happening instead of taking any kind of action. In Siri Hustvedt? s essay she gives a couple of examples of how the rule works and of the times when the rule occasionally is broken. The essay is written in first-person-writing which matches the genre: essay. The experiences that are described in the essay are Siri Hustvedt? s own experiences, her family’s experiences, including her husband and her daughter, and an Iranian friend.
The first 20 lines are used as an introduction/presentation of firstly herself, secondly where she comes from (Minnesota) and how it is different from New York and thirdly the beginning of her life in New York. Siri Hustvedt used to live in Minnesota, a so called, egalitarian state where greeting and general politeness is very important and where passing someone in silence would be considered extremely rude and you would be accused of snobbery if you did it. When she moved to New York in 1978 she quickly discovered that she had to change some of the habits she was used to and that it would be quite impractical to greet everyone she passed.
The Essay on A Way of Life for Searching People
The book Practicing Our Faith: a Way of Life for a Searching People is about addressing the need for sharing the fundamental needs of man to establish faithful and honorable Christian way of life. It explores twelve central Christian practices contributed together by thirteen individuals coming from diverse denominational and ethnic backgrounds. Specifically this book provides significance to ...
