Anna Sibilia

David Steiling

Invisibility in Numbers

Influences Overwriting Each other

Many governments and societal structures depend on the concept of the ‘majority rule’, a term defined as “a political system in which the group that has the most members has the power to make decisions” (Merriam-Webster) and operates on the belief that the larger percentage of people will have the better intentions and will pick a more practical solution that benefits the whole. This is not always the case for it is the balance in the information’s ethos, pathos, and logos that will sway either side of a conflict one way or another. The advertisement and media are professionals at this, selling half of a story in order to sway the outcome for it will benefit them, and most of the time the masses are none the wiser for it is difficult to find the logos in anything if pathos is the only source being exploited or reported on. 

This mindset ultimately carries into fiction as well, for in order to be applicable and relatable to a large audience, a work must have a level of generic or basic ideas, right? In I Live with You, the protagonist is more like a generic shadow that casts itself onto another person that was barely more tangible. Even though the mina character didn’t have the physical commodities of the other, they were able to pull the strings and orchestrate the other person like a puppet, controlling everything from their wardrobe to their tastes in food and eventually their romantic interest. They give the other no choice but to submissively follow the new pattern put in place for them, like how many people must follow a majority rule though they disagree with the implemented law or practice. It is unfair for the ones who did not get what they wanted often cannot turn the situation around or are put at a purposeful disadvantage, that way if discourse was to arise from the conflict, it would not matter and nothing too great could be done to fix the issue at hand. 

Likewise this story shows how a woman’s life, once turned upside down, has no situational power to clean up the mess. The main character preaches about how they do everything for the benefit of the other, how they ‘don’t steal’, when almost every action they take in the story is  because they want to watch a mess unfold for entertainment; that’s all their new company is to them: a thing to be toyed with, not an actual person with rights. While the unnamed woman was introverted, she was safe in her pattern and liked her ways; she was simply content in her life and didn’t feel the need to explore too much, yet then the unwelcome influence weasels into her life and she cannot help but comply. She struggles to keep her bearings, keep her life together, and though she might have some fleeting moments of happiness, they are few and far between and heavily outweighed by the strife put on her by a nosy sadist. 

 This disregard for another autonomy and well being is a theme that exists today but has little recognition in mass media -for obvious reasons. By trying to make sure that the largest majority is happy, the same groups are constantly unrepresented and taken advantage of; it is a vicious cycles that, thankfully, is being broken in recent works along wth the aid of social media, but it is still reinforced by the major outlets. However as more stories and new faces begin to come to light, it is more clear that there are far more voices and imaginations that should have attention given to them. What is safe is not innovative, and what is innovative is often not imagined by those whom have lived in comfort.