I Live With You

I Live With You, the short story by Carol Emshwiller, is possibly one of the most confusing things I've read all the way through this semester. The story itself talks about an unwelcome house guest of sorts that intrudes in a woman's life, wears her clothes, uses her shower, messes with her relationships, etc. Try as I might, I couldn't figure out what the narrator was supposed to represent, which is why I thought this story was so confusing. However, I loved the way it was written. I thought it was deep, complex, intriguing, and new. Typically, I prefer to read novels and stories that use past tense, but Emshwiller's use of present tense was clearly intentional, and made perfect sense. The reader really becomes the narrator, in a way. Probably because the entire passage is written in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style, or like a detailed diary, with its rhetorical questions and use of select details (“I nap in your bed when you're at work and leave it rumpled”). It also makes perfect sense that the story be written in chronological order. It feels much more like a diary, or like someone's thoughts. I tried to look up discussions of this story, to see if anyone knew what the narrator is supposed to represent, but I could barely find anything on the story itself, which was a little frustrating. Something this interesting and unusual should really be more well known. I suspected that the narrator had something to do with self-doubt. It keeps creeping up in the back of your mind, and you really can't do anything to keep it from coming back until you “set traps” for it. I speak from experience. The only way the woman in the story can get rid of this personified self consciousness is to take back her life and change. One of my favorite lines from the story itself is on the second to last page. “You've changed. You'll take back your life. Everybody will make way for you now.”