LonelinessLoneliness

““We’re born alone, we live alone, we We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we are not for the moment that we are not alone.” alone.”

Orson WellesOrson Welles

• LonelinessLoneliness is an emotional state in which is an emotional state in which a person experiences a powerful feeling of a person experiences a powerful feeling of emptiness and isolation. Loneliness is emptiness and isolation. Loneliness is more than just the feeling of wanting more than just the feeling of wanting company or wanting to do something with company or wanting to do something with another person. Loneliness is a feeling of another person. Loneliness is a feeling of being cut off, disconnected from, and being cut off, disconnected from, and alienated towards, other people. The alienated towards, other people. The lonely person may find it difficult or even lonely person may find it difficult or even impossible to have any form of meaningful impossible to have any form of meaningful human contact. Lonely people often human contact. Lonely people often experience a subjective sense of inner experience a subjective sense of inner emptiness or hollowness, with feelings of emptiness or hollowness, with feelings of separation or isolation from the world.separation or isolation from the world.

• The first recorded use of the word "lonely" The first recorded use of the word "lonely" was in William Shakespeare's was in William Shakespeare's CoriolanusCoriolanus..

• ““Loneliness should not be equated with Loneliness should not be equated with being alonebeing alone. Everyone has times when . Everyone has times when they are alone through circumstances or they are alone through circumstances or choice. Being alone can be experienced as choice. Being alone can be experienced as positive, pleasurable, and emotionally positive, pleasurable, and emotionally refreshing refreshing if it is under the individual's if it is under the individual's controlcontrol. Solitude is the state of being . Solitude is the state of being alone and secluded from other people, and alone and secluded from other people, and often implies having made a conscious often implies having made a conscious choice to be alone. Loneliness is therefore choice to be alone. Loneliness is therefore unwilling solitude.” unwilling solitude.”

• Wikipedia, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness (emphasis (emphasis mine)mine)

““When friendship disappears then When friendship disappears then there is a space left open to that there is a space left open to that awful loneliness of the outside world awful loneliness of the outside world which is like the cold space between which is like the cold space between the planets. It is an air in which men the planets. It is an air in which men perish utterly.” perish utterly.”

Hilaire Belloc Hilaire Belloc

““A lonely man is a lonesome thing, a A lonely man is a lonesome thing, a stone, a bone, a stick, a receptacle stone, a bone, a stick, a receptacle for Gilbey's gin, a stooped figure for Gilbey's gin, a stooped figure sitting at the edge of a hotel bed, sitting at the edge of a hotel bed, heaving copious sighs like the heaving copious sighs like the autumn wind.” autumn wind.”

John Cheever John Cheever

““All men are lonely. But sometimes it All men are lonely. But sometimes it seems to me that we Americans are the seems to me that we Americans are the loneliest of all. Our hunger for foreign loneliest of all. Our hunger for foreign places and new ways has been with us places and new ways has been with us almost like a national disease. Our almost like a national disease. Our literature is stamped with a quality of literature is stamped with a quality of longing and unrest, and our writers have longing and unrest, and our writers have been great wanderers.” been great wanderers.”

Carson McCullers Carson McCullers

• Think about loneliness as a theme in Think about loneliness as a theme in writing: why is it so prevalent? (Your writing: why is it so prevalent? (Your text lists twelve stories that deal with text lists twelve stories that deal with this theme to some extent.)this theme to some extent.)

• Much has been written about the Much has been written about the loneliness of writing. Writing itself is loneliness of writing. Writing itself is a solitary act; does that contribute to a solitary act; does that contribute to writers’ desire to explore what it is to writers’ desire to explore what it is to be lonely?be lonely?