Michele Filgate: The Nature Of Loneliness

1). What does each essay have to say about the nature of loneliness?

In Michele Filgate’s essay, she shares with the readers her childhood memories of growing up with an abusive stepfather and how her mother always kept silent about it. Each time that Michele attempted to talk to her mother about the abuse, her mother brushed the situation under the rug and moved on. I can understand how this can come off as feeling alone. The only mention of loneliness that Michele explains, is when she describes the time she was coming home from school and how happy she was that she was alone. Yes, at that moment she saw it as a good thing. Why? Because she did not have to be home alone with her abusive stepfather. Yet, Michele’s essay continues and she describes her silent, cold relationship with her mother. Aside from the previous example, Michele does not state feeling lonely – instead, she describes it perfectly. She discusses the nature of loneliness and what it feels to not be able to confide in her own mother or

She described herself being drawn to a lot of these abandoned locations, and recalls herself being a lonely child. Through these homes, we find that there is a story behind each one. When Oates tells the story of Mr. Weidel’s house, we get a second hand sense of the events that lead up to the house being abandoned and the story behind it. In addition, we also get a personal and up close experience that Oates describes as coming across the daughter of Mr. Weidel, and how she had experienced the aftermath of her house burning down (which we all pretty much knew what had happened). In a sense, reading how Ruth reacted and seeing how Oates interacted with her, l can not help but feel as though Ruth was probably feeling just as lonely as Michele might have been feeling in her own experiences. It’s the sense of loneliness, of not knowing when and if you should talk about it. It feels