Loneliness

The story loneliness is about a man named Enoch Robinson. Enoch is mentally unstable and very unfortunate. Loneliness begins with a brief description of Enoch’s childhood. Although it is easy to pass over his childhood, his childhood must be carefully examined as it contains many clues about figuring out Enoch Robinson as a person. The earlier parts of the story stated that Robinson grew up in a barn that had windows that were never open. The windows serve as a medium for Enoch and the real world. Because the windows are shut, Enoch is lonely and cut off from the real world. He is not able to successfully develop his real world and people skills. This translated into his high school life as Enoch was described to be a very timid and silent high school student. As life went on, Enoch decided he wanted to pursue art so he enrolled in a French art school. He also started hanging out with the artist group. When the artists convened and discussed art, Enoch was unable to. The story says that Enoch was simply too excited to get his words out. But he had this burning desire to speak and voice his opinions to these artists. After awhile, Enoch became sick of the fact that he couldn’t talk and express his views. Perhaps this is the precise reason for Enoch creating imaginary people. He started to create imaginary friends who would be completely understanding of Enoch. Among his imaginary friends, Enoch had everything he wished for. He could now be his egotistical child self and boss all of his imaginary friends around. He would have this “absurd air of importance”. This air of importance is what he was missing all his life. From his childhood to his coming of age, he never experienced what it was like to be important and to be heard. This changed once Enoch started creating imaginary friends. He was genuinely happy and satisfied with them because he finally felt what it was like to be important. Satisfaction led him to believe that he didn’t need anyone else in his world so he stopped hanging out with the artists and inviting them over to have art discussions. In his own world, Enoch was the all-important figure he wanted to be in real life. But happiness can only be temporarily forced. Sooner or later, something had to shatter his world. One day, a woman comes to his apartment where Enoch decides to tell her everything. This obviously included his imaginary friends. He became extremely angry with her because he realized that she wasn’t like his imaginary friends where they could be controlled at will and she couldn’t. This must have been a harsh reminder for Enoch as all his imaginary friends followed the woman when she left his apartment. His imaginary friends never came back and that put an abrupt end to Enoch’s perfect world where he reigned supreme. He then went back to Winesburg as an old and defeated man.