Week 12 - I Live With You

I Live With You

For our diverse positions in scifi unit, I read the short story I Live With You by Carol Emshwiller. I thought the story was interesting in how little information Emshwiller gives about the narrator. On the surface he narrator seems to constantly be talking about herself (itself?) and how she thinks and acts (her "I don't steal" rule, what she looks like, etc.), but in reality we never really discover what the narrator is. She seems to be some kind of midpoint between a supernatural being and a physical doppleganger of the woman whose house she is living in. This, for me, made being in the narrator's head a very uncomfortable place because there's no telling what her inner logic really is and what she plans to do--for a big part of the story, for example, I thought she was planning on getting rid of Nora and taking her place. This confusion over whether despite declared good intentions the narrator is actually sinister along with the uncertain nature of whose head we've been put inside throughout the story is what made it the most interesting and enjoyable for me.