Theme Of I Am An Island

There are many ways that people can isolate themselves. Isolation is not always something brought upon one’s self. Isolation can be optional, or a person may have no option in isolation. Stevie Smith, Nathaniel Hawthorne and E.A Robinson show, develop, and illustrate the theme of isolation in their short story and poems.

I believe the overall message of Henry David Thoreau´s “Solitude” is to differentiate solitude and loneliness which are totally different. It is more of a state of mind than something real. People around by other people would feel more loneliness than people who are physically alone. For Thoreau being in solitude is the best way to discover your mind and spirituality and is the best way to know yourself.

From the works: “Notes from Underground” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, the reader sees that two people, by trying to become their own individual person, can be alienated from society for different reasons. If we are to allow people to become an individual, it is crucial we stop seeing people as part of a group’s

“The Virtues of Isolation”, written by Brent Crane, states that under the right circumstances being alone can provide significant psychological help. The article stated that scientists often associate isolation with negative outcomes due to it having adverse effects on the minds of children. However, when it is voluntarily pursued, it can be shown to have significant befits—some would even say its therapeutic. That temporarily isolating yourself gives you a chance to take a step back and take a good look at yourself. It alleviates the stress on our everyday lives and lets us relax. That the difference between solitude as therapy and solitude as misery depends on the quality of self-reflection that a person experiences, and the ability to reintegrate into social groups when their ready.

Bruce Dawe, one of the most influential Australian poets of his time was known for using his poems as a way to efficiently discuss the matters in society of his time and how this follows through generation, thus becoming a significant matter for his modern audience. Both Dawe’s poems The Not So Good Earth and Up The Wall have successfully demonstrated the issues of the complacency of our society towards the world around us and their issues and the disconnection this thenceforth creates in everyday life and how this impacts the individual. Dawe’s poem, Up The Wall, truly validates the impact of the suburban, everyday lifestyle on the individual and how the loneliness this creates can push someone to the edge. Dawe’s use of onomatopoeia with the abrupt words of “shrieked” and “screams” really imposes that internal struggle the woman was experiencing.

At a point in time in the life of every person, a feeling of being trapped or stuck occurs. The poem “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar represents the speaker’s vast knowledge of the feeling of being enclosed in a place where they are tremendously uncomfortable. The speaker explains the actions of a bird trapped in a small cage and explains the motives behind the actions. The speaker reveals that the song the caged bird sings is not a melody exuberating joy, but a cry begging for freedom.

Chris McCandless misunderstood Emerson’s words in “Self Reliance”. Chris may have been bright when it comes to academics, but when it comes to analyzing and understanding a writer’s words…he is as dark as the night. Emerson states “but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude” (Emerson 2). Solitude has a positive connotation about being alone like finding one’s true self. Isolation has the negative connotation that means forced being

First, In the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, there are many examples of isolation, Ethan the main character is one example of isolation. Ethan at a young age had to care for the farm and mill soon after his father had passed away. He left his education and career to do so, he later had to care for his mother who fell ill. After this Ethan didn't really have a life of his own, he had to help others and didn't receive any help for a while. Later, Zenobia had come to help aid his mother, and yet somehow managed to aid Ethan along the way. To Ethan Zeena was an escape from his loneliness. When his mother

Imagine a world where there is no society. Imagine if there was no technology and everybody just lived in isolation. In Emerson’s essay, “Self-Reliance,” he illustrates his ideas on the tenet by using metaphors. Nonconformity means being mentally and physically separated from society, a quality which sometimes overlaps with the ideas behind self-reliance. In “Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” Thoreau uses personal experiences, description, and problem-and-solution. Emerson and Thoreau begin by using different techniques, Thoreau using problem-and-solution and description, while Emerson uses cause-and-effect, yet both use cause-and-effect to develop the idea that one should be independent of society in the end.

In this essay I will be comparing two poems which show connections between people and the places in which they live. The two poems I will be comparing and contrasting are “Blessing” by imtiaz Dharker and “Island Man” by Grace Nichols. Both of these poets express their feelings through these poems. Grace Nichols allocates her experiences of how people feel when separated from the environment and place they lived in for such a long period of time. On the contrary Imtiaz Dharker uses the poem “Blessing” to convey the importance of water for less fortunate people. From both of the poems I have chosen I can see that the poets have written about something they feel is important. The reason why I have chosen these two poems is because both of the

      Herman Melville's Bartleby is a tale of isolation and alienation. In his story, society

In the short story, “A Rose For Emily” written by William Faulkner, there is a myriad of examples in which the theme of isolation and exclusion is implemented. Emily Grierson, the main character, is known to the town as old and alone. Emily inhabits the past and is not introduced to the town’s social norms. As the town began to industrialize, Emily’s residency has not evolved into the modern day world. The community continues to grow, whereas Emily begins to grow old in her forgotten home among the town, thus leading her into isolation and exclusion.

The novel, Wild, also dealt a great deal with the concept of isolation. Cheryl, the main character, hiked 1,100 miles of the 2,663 mile long Pacific Crest Trail, completing a 94-day journey. Although Cheryl, unlike PI, bumped into a few people over the course of her journey, she was for the most part in complete isolation. She too learned some valuable lessons causing her to grow as a person through her own extreme isolation. Cheryl’s exploration of her own solitude is demonstrated when she writes “Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren’t a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was. The radical aloneness of the PCT had altered that sense. Alone wasn’t a room anymore, but the whole wide world.” (p. 98). This shows the full extent of the aloneness Cheryl feels on the PCT. She states that in a way, she had always been comfortable with being alone, but the extent of the isolation she is now feeling, true aloneness, is much more extreme the the slight solitude she often felt in her old city life. Clearly, being alone in the wilderness is a far different experience, one that she can learn much different and more

McKays's poem, "Outcast," is the most obvious example of this outsider theme. From the title to the last line there are many references to a feeling of alienation and neglect. The voice in the poem longs for "the dim regions whence my fathers came." The

In his poem “Acquainted with the Night,” Robert Frost describes a character who spends his nights wandering the city streets. The reader can infer from both Frost’s tone, and the time of day in which the speaker chooses to walk, that the character is in a world of isolation. This is especially evident in the lines, “When far away an interrupted cry/ Came over houses from another street,/ But not to call me back or say good-by” (Frost 898). From this line, the reader understands that the poem’s speaker feels as if he is completely isolated in the world. In a similar way, E. E. Cummings poem “anyone lived in a pretty how town” expresses the loneliness felt by people of this era. Cummings creative use of pronouns gives the poem a double entendre. The characters, anyone and noone, can represent their literal meanings, or a single man and woman. Therefore, when Cummings writes that “noone loves him more by more,” he could mean that anyone is being loved greatly, or not at all. This loneliness is expressed yet again when Cummings informs the reader, “Women and men (both little and small)/ cared for anyone not at all” (Cummings 922). The works of both Frost and Cummings both portray the hardship that accompanied the feeling of loneliness during the modern