title: Creating pythonic objects that share memory
body: <p>I'm trying to create an object in python which is composed of smaller objects. Each of the objects has its own meaning - each of the smaller objects and the entire object as a whole.
  The problem is that I want each of the 3 objects to be seemingly independently addressable and to operate as standalone objects and this is rather difficult to achieve.
  This problem would be easy to solve in C using pointers but I find it difficult to simulate this behavior in Python.</p>
  
  <p>An example to the situation I'm talking about could be seen in a control word of a state machine: The control word (2 bytes) has a meaning as a whole and needs to be accesses (or transferred) as an object, but each of the bytes in the control word has its own meaning and needs to be set and accessed independently.</p>
  
  <p>In C I'd do something like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>unsigned short control_word_memory;
  unsigned short *control_word = &amp;control_word_memory;
  unsigned char *low_byte = &amp;control_word_memory;
  unsigned char *high_byte = low_byte + 1;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And thus I'd be able to access each of the elements easily and not be forced to maintain complex logic to keep all 3 objects in sync - an assignment into <code>*control_word</code> would update both <code>low_byte</code> and <code>high_byte</code> simultaneously, and any update to the byte objects will influence the <code>control_word</code>.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a <strong>simple</strong> way to achieve this behavior in Python?</p>