Isolation
Michele, your post was intriguing and inspired me to link together a few things which I feel relate to it, especially the idea of loneliness that you expressed. Can loneliness truly be expressed now, with all of these mediums available to us on the internet? It is true that many people choose to not take part in Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, or any other such programs, but these same people may be the ones who would be more inclined to participate in PostSecret. Through this medium, they are able to stay 'underground,' 'unseen,' yet still reach out to the world, wondering if anyone else feels the way they do.
Can loneliness and isolation be fully experienced in a life in which people are so closely linked through transportation, occupations, and the like? It takes a lot of effort to be completely isolated, not only based on monetary problems, but also on family or connections one has built throughout their lives (even if this number is very small). Complete isolation would have severe mental backlashes, as well, and there may be legal stipulations as to where one can live (property laws, taxes). I'm pretty sure that if a police officer was driving on a desolate highway and saw a tent in the woods, s/he would most likely get suspicious and approach the hermit.
It is often the most interesting to read about isolated characters in literature, because through their complete removal from society, they have been forced to live within themselves, relying only on themselves and on what is in their minds. This makes these characters anything but boring, and seems to assign an importance to them, as they have lived in such a way and struggled for so long. (It is hard to see them as petty or trite because of their lifestyle).
In Charlotte Smith's poem entitled "Beachy Head," the speaker describes the setting (Beachy Head, itself) of the poem through a macro lens, opening the work,:
On thy stupendous summit, rock sublime !
That o'er the channel rear'd, half way at sea
....
when the Omnipotent
Stretch'd forth his arm, and rent the solid hills,
Bidding the impetuous main flood rush between
The rifted shores, and from the continent
Eternally divided this green isle" (ln. 1-10).
Smith is rather Apocalyptic in her use of imagery. The "Omnipotent/Stretch'd forth his arm" (ln. 6-7), and not only that, but he "rent" (to tear, to separate into parts with force or violence) the hills in order to create this place named Beachy Head. Two hermits are introduced nearing the end of the story. One, "of Solitude/And of his hermit life, still more enamour'd,/His home was in the forest; and wild fruits/And bread sustain'd him" (pg. 38-39) lives with hope. The other is described as such:
And sad and gloomy are his days, who lives
Of Hope abandon'd !
Just beneath the rock
Where Beachy overpeers the channel wave,
Within a cavern mined by wintry tides
Dwelt one, who long disgusted with the world
And all its ways, appear'd to suffer life
Rather than live (pg. 47-48).
The parallels are interesting, and it is actually unclear at points as to whether Smith, in her poem, means for these 'two' hermits to actually be one in the same, with different dispositions at different times. The poem ends with the cave-dwelling hermit watching a storm, seeing sheep falling from the cliff above him and down to their deaths in the rough water below:
The little careless sheep
On the brink grazing, while their headlong fall
Near the lone Hermit's flint-surrounded home,
Claim'd unavailing pity; for his heart
Was feelingly alive to all that breath'd;
And outraged as he was, in sanguine youth,
By human crimes, he still acutely felt
For human misery (pg. 48).
His isolation is described as a struggle as he watches the world fall around him in an awful storm. Rather than do nothing, he risks his life for a ship in trouble below, stuck in the raging storm. We also learn that the hermit has been risking his life for mariners lost at sea for many years, and that when he is unable to save them, "the pale recluse/Dug in the chalk a sepulchre--above/Where the dank sea-wrack mark'd the utmost tide,/And with his prayers perform'd the obsequies/For the poor helpless stranger" (pg. 50). The poem ends in an incredibly moving way:
At day-break, anxious for the lonely man,
His cave the mountain shepherds visited,
Tho' sand and banks of weeds had choak'd their way--
He was not in it; but his drowned cor'se
By the waves wafted, near his former home
Receiv'd the rites of burial. Those who read
Chisel'd within the rock, these mournful lines,
Memorials of his sufferings, did not grieve,
That dying in the cause of charity
His spirit, from its earthly bondage freed,
Had to some better region fled for ever (pg. 51).
http://digital.lib.ucdavis.edu/projects/bwrp/Works/SmitCBeach.htm <--The text
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The talk of isolation is actually a topic I'm tackling in my final project--specifically, though, in regard to the elderly.
ReplyDeleteWe talk a lot (or, I know I do) about the interconnectedness in our society, and the way that nobody can ever be quite alone.
But, what about the people who don't have the technological skill, knowledge, or background to be a part of the communities that we so take for granted, as relatively tech-savvy twenty-somethings?
I, like most of my friends, thought it was hilarious when my mom got a Facebook. She struggled so much (comparatively) through the processes that I was so used to, from Xanga to Myspace to AIM to this. My mom's a pretty smart woman, so she picked up the workings quickly. It was funny, and now I can write on her wall if I want to. Score.
But what if my grandfather got a Facebook? He has a computer, but can't get online without the instructions we wrote on a legal pad, leftover from his days as a judge, and the brightly colored stickers we stuck on certain keys. Even if he had grown up with the technology, it wouldn't stop his eyes from going bad enough that he can barely see the screen. The online world is strictly for those who can navigate it--and the elderly people of our community are not a part of that category.
I often think about American society regarding old people, as opposed to that of Eastern culture, where respect grows with age. I'm not going to turn this into a stereotypical rant about nursing homes or anything, but I do find it interesting: why do we shut out the elderly, without even a thought? Why do we make communities that only exist for a certain age bracket?
Oh, and I really liked all of your elaboration, especially the inclusion of poetry. :) Sorry, I forgot to include that in the comment.
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