Isolation contributes to self worth
By: Vickey Leuang & Hayley Ellis
Grendel Loneliness.
Ernest Hemingway's Speech
“Having no facility for speech-making and no command of oratory nor any domination of rhetoric, I wish to thank the administrators of the generosity of Alfred Nobel for this Prize.
No writer who knows the great writers who did not receive the Prize can accept it other than with humility. There is no need to list these writers. Everyone here may make his own list according to his knowledge and his conscience.
It would be impossible for me to ask the Ambassador of my country to read a speech in which a writer said all of the things which are in his heart. Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses he will endure or be forgotten.
Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.
For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.
How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.
I have spoken too long for a writer. A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it.
Again I thank you.”
Hemmingway, Ernest. "Ernest Hemmingway's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech." City Hall in Stockholm. 10, December 1954.
Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles.
The Beatles. Eleanor Rigby. George Martin, 1966. YouTube. Web. 10 Sept. 2014.
The Strength of the Lonely by Vachel Lindsay.
Who walks his cell, the sky.
His strength is that of heaven-vowed men
Who all life's flames defy.
They turn to stars or shadows,
They go like snow or dew—
Leaving behind no sorrow
Only the arching blue.
Vachel writes a poem about how alone the moon is in the sky. She personifies the moon by comparing it to a monk. She discusses the loneliness and isolation that the moon undergoes. This poem was written in the early 1900s.
Lindsay, Vachel. "The Strength of the Lonely." The Congo and Other Poems. Ed. Harriet Monroe. Chicago: 1914. 142. Print.
The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald.
In 1925, Fitzgerald writes the novel, The Great Gatsby. A main theme in this novel is the Lost Generation. The 1920's was a world without connections, friends, or family. Gatsby lives a lonely life-without friends or family. He has his possessions, his money, his mansion, but he is not fulfilled. He desires something more; he desires something that will cure his loneliness.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996. Print.
Mother Teresa's quote on Loneliness.
Mother Teresa says this quote in 1946, that she experienced loneliness when her Communion with Jesus ended. Loneliness happens around the world in our society. It is very persuasive, and people have expectations to live happy, when that's not the case. No one wants to live a life alone and isolated. We want to fulfill our lives with a significant other.
Loneliness by Charles Burke
Loneliness is a non-fiction book published in 2004 about a fear of facing life isolated and alone. Acceptance- or the the lack of acceptance- can lead to isolation or lonliness, which fills people"with a painful emptiness." Burke writes about the strength that can arise from the trouble and difficulty with loneliness. One major theme in the book is that the experience of loneliness is felt by everyone.
Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe
Berenice is a short story published in 1835 about a man who is marrying his cousin. Throughout his lifetime, Egaeus falls into periods of isolation. This isolation leads to loneliness, and even after Bernice dies, Egaeus still isolates himself, by choice.
Loneliness is Deadly by Jessica Olien.
"Social Isolation kills more people than obesity does- and it's just as stigmatized." In this magazine article, Jessica Olien discusses her move to New York and the results of her life without connection with others. Loneliness hit her like a wave, so she started to research it and realized that loneliness is killing us. Loneliness has doubled since the 1980s. In a society of internet friends and judgemental, it can feel hard to fit in. The lack of relationships leads to social isolation.