Killers Carol Emshwiller Analysis

The Search for a Purpose in Carol Emshwiller’s “Killers” It is human nature to desire a sense of purpose in life greater than just yourself. Whether it be something as large as serving the country or as small as serving a family member, helping others can provide a sense of meaning to a person’s life. This meaning can become addictive, and in the narrator’s case from Carol Emshwiller’s “Killers”, became the main reason that they are still living and pushing to survive. Throughout this story, the point of view, incorporation of anecdotes, and use of imagery allows the narrator to show that being responsible for someone else creates a feeling of purpose and a sense of soundness in a caretaker’s life. The narrator’s internal monologue throughout the story provides readers with her rationale as to how she has survived the apocalypse. Readers are initially told that the narrator is an outlier in the town because she is yet to abandon her house to move to higher ground. She reveals that she has remained there because she wants her “…brother to have [their] old home to come back to” (Emshwiller 463). In hopes of being reunited with her brother, the narrator insists on staying in her old house believing that he will know to return to it. Taking care of the house and remaining isolated within it creates meaning within her thinking that she is actively
This sort of obsession is shown through her internal monologue, short stories, and imagery when she stays home from war to care for her mother, continues to search for her brother, and takes in a stranger from off the streets. While caring for her mother, brother, and Joe made the narrator feel secure, staying isolated from the rest of her town to do so only delayed her exposure to the dangers of the