The House Behind by Lydia Davis
"The House Behind" by Lydia Davis explores the complex dynamics between residents of two neighboring houses situated in a courtyard. The narrator lives in a modest dwelling at the rear, contrasting sharply with the front house, inhabited by individuals of higher social and economic status, including civil servants. This disparity breeds resentment among those in the back, who are primarily working-class, against the more affluent residents in the front, creating an atmosphere of condescension and tension.
A pivotal event in the story occurs when M. Martin, a resident from the back house, fatally stabs a woman from the front house during a seemingly benign interaction at the trash cans. This shocking act of violence deepens the divide between the two groups, leading to increased avoidance and hostility. In the aftermath, residents of both houses retreat into themselves, and communal life deteriorates, marked by neglect and discomfort.
The narrator ultimately faces the harsh reality of his living situation and contemplates leaving the neighborhood for a fresh start. Through its exploration of class differences and the effects of violence on community dynamics, "The House Behind" presents a commentary on the human experience amid socioeconomic disparities.
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The House Behind by Lydia Davis
First published: 1997
Type of plot: Allegory
Time of work: The 1990's
Locale: Saint-Étienne, France
Principal Characters:
The narrator , who lives in a house at the rear of a courtyardM. Martin , the murderer
The Story
The narrator lives in a house at the rear of a courtyard and can look across to the bathroom and kitchen windows of the house in front. The dwellers in the front house—many of them high civil servants—enjoy greater economic and social advantages than their neighbors to the rear, who tend to be store owners, salespeople, retired postal workers, and single schoolteachers. The people in front occupy comfortable, spacious apartments; those in the rear endure small, awkward quarters. These differences create resentment in the house behind and condescension in the one in front.
One of the rituals of daily life for residents of both houses is the emptying of their plastic garbage pails in the big metal trash cans in the courtyard. The narrator recalls the shocking murder that occurred at the trash cans a year earlier. A woman from the house in front appeared in the courtyard just as M. Martin, a married man from the house behind, dumped his garbage. The woman, one of the "few kind people" in the front house, spoke to the man. He perhaps interpreted her apparently friendly words as patronizing, for he immediately stabbed her in the throat with the hunting knife with which he had been scraping his pail.
The sudden murder astonished the residents of both houses, who stood in their doorways staring at the tableau before them—a woman on the ground with blood gushing from her throat, a man standing over her, and garbage spilling from the pail she still clutched by its handle. It was the location in a kind of no-man's-land that paralyzed everyone, or so the narrator speculates. Finally, the concierge stepped out to take charge, the coroner carried away the body, and the police took M. Martin to jail.
The shock of the event intensified the ill will that already prevailed between the two houses. The tenants of the two houses began to avoid each other and fell into frequent violent engagements. People from the front house would not approach the courtyard alone, and old ladies from the front house ventured to the trash cans only in pairs. The night nurse living in the house behind quit dusting the banisters every afternoon and kept to her room and her radio; another woman, the older Lamartine sister, forbore her usual vigil at the crack in her door and stayed hidden except for early-morning Mass on Sundays; and the narrator's neighbor ignored for days the laundry on her line. Foul odors drifted in the hallways, making tradespeople uncomfortable; people wore raincoats outside to conceal their poorly kept clothes; and surliness overtook everyone. A year after the murder, the narrator confides that the situation has become intolerable and realizes that before he becomes incapable of making the effort, he must go and find an apartment in another part of the city.