Emma Stephens
Advanced Comp 200
Essay Response – States by Edward Said
Photos of Strangers
A story of three strangers takes discipline, a discipline that requires one to pretend to know them, and be able to tell their imaginary story. For one, She is not a stranger. She is familiar to most women because most women know themselves as Her, in at least one point of their lives. To make matters more complicated, He is not a stranger either because most women meet Him at least once in their lives. If a woman is horribly unlucky, she will meet him many times, and maybe end up stuck with Him for a very long time. This is an imaginary story to mimic the life of one 20-something who is caught in a tide with He and She. Her name is Stranger, and she is the fuel that burns He and She together.
Stranger is not an easy person to love. She is ornery, boring, and bleak. Stranger is not accustomed to dysfunctionality because she does not let herself near it, which makes her boring. He and She, however, have built their lives around it, and while Stranger has just met them, she is already drowning in them slightly. Stranger goes through her life half asleep because she is exhausted from trying to escape people like He and She, but unfortunately for her, they are impossible to escape. Stranger is foolish, and therefore, she is in love with He for all his instability. She knows this, and laughs when she finds them even though this destroys her. She has lived with He long enough to realize that Stranger will pass and will soon be replaced, though this does not give her comfort. She has become so invested in his lies that she finds it impossible to leave him, and this makes her a fool. This is the first way that Stranger and She are alike, and the first way that they differ.
He is a bad person. He lies, deceives, manipulates, and he is unavoidably good-looking. These are traits in He that She and Stranger find the most infuriating, and the most exciting. However, there is nothing they can do about this because one of He’s only talents is lying, and lying well. He lies so well that he makes it okay for these women to become shells of themselves, and accepts that they are half-women because of his lies. He is the man that every mother tells her daughter to avoid, and He is well aware of this. He doesn’t care, mostly because he cares about nothing. He cares very slightly about She, but not at all about Stranger. This is the second way She and Stranger are alike, and the second way they differ. She used to be Stranger, before she invested so much time in He, and if she ever leaves, Stranger will probably become She. This is the tide that binds them, the same tide that will never lessen its pressure around their throats.
This is the kind of story about three non-strangers that never ends. He is the constant, while She and Stranger are the variables. Even if they found the time to go, they would be replaced, and so on and so forth. This is the way it works with men like He, but women like She and Stranger might have a chance, as long as they don’t keep meeting He over and over. But, that is only if they are horribly unlucky or disgustingly insecure. Which, luckily for She and Stranger, they are neither. Three months, or give years, or two weeks down the line, these things might change. But for now, their complexities must remain.
