hermit

In class we talked a lot about weather or not Lily really was a “hermit”. She definitely was not what we generally consider to be a hermit or what we typically think of when we imagine a loner like herself. A hermit is someone living in solitude but Lily was never really that alone. Even when she returned to The Hill she was still connected to the outside world through Jim and Ellie and even the press and random trespassers.

            Still, I think she was a damn god hermit. She was more of a mental hermit than she was a hermit by excluding herself from society. What I mean, is that her mind existed in solitude, even if she didn’t. After leaving the city and returning to The Hill, she was looked after by a few people, but not because she asked them to, or even because she wanted it. She longed for aloneness and time with herself and the place in which she was her most authentic self. What is most impressive to me is that she was able to resist Jim so adamantly for so many years. From time to time he attempted to fill what most people would consider an essential need, the need for intellectual stimulation by contact with others. Lily’s mind was a fortress, even in sickness, both mental sickness and physical sickness, she denied all help, simply because her mind was too strong, too closed.

            Throughout the book I admired her most for that quality, the part of her that loved aloneness without ever feeling lonely. This is exactly why I was so disappointed when she ended up with the doctor. It seemed so counter intuitive to the character Shartle had been developing for 200+ pages, a character made stronger by her solitude. I’m not sure if “the happily ever after” ending was less work than something more tumultuous and Lily-like, but it seemed completely out of place.