Loneliness In Uncle Ernest and A Painful Case

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Loneliness is a  in which people experience a strong sense of  and . Loneliness is often compared to feeling empty, unwanted, and unimportant. Someone who is lonely may find it hard to form strong relationships with those of the same and opposite sex. One who is classed as lonely often fails to build bridges within society, coming across as distant and irrelevant to life itself. Loneliness isn’t something, which happens by choice, but is often related to certain events happening in the sufferers’ life.

A Painful Case is revolved around the story of a boring, predictable banker named Mr. Duffy. Mr. Duffy follows a life of routine, works, eats in the same restaurant with the same meal, and returns home. Occasionally, Mr Duffy leaves the house to visit the theatre or concert hall. One on of these rare occasions he meets a particularly interesting woman named Mrs. Sinico. Mr Duffy bumps into Mrs. Sinico on a further three occasions, and on the third arranges to meet with her purposely.

   Mr Duffy begins to feel uncomfortable with the meetings as he founds out her husband, Mr Sinico was a captain of a merchant ship. Despite with feeling uncomfortable, Mr Duffy continues to meet her, always at her house.  They share many interests, and I feel that Mr Duffy finally has found somebody he can relate to. They appear to get closer and closer throughout the meetings as they slowly find out they share many interests. Mr Duffy’s once hard, boring character begins to lighten up, which was soon to change. Mrs. Sinico makes a misinterpretation of Mr Duffy’s body language leading her to put Mr Duffy’s hand on her cheek. Disgusted with this sexual advance Mr Duffy finishes his regular visits to her and cuts off any relationship they had with each other. They have a final meeting in a cake shop, agreeing to end all links with each other although it’s clear this is not what Mrs. Sinico wants.

  Four years later Mr Duffy stumbles across a news article entitled ‘A Painful Case’. This article describes the events of Mrs. Sinico’s death, and mentions that she was an alcoholic and had become very detached from her husband in the past two years. This news saddens Mr Duffy, and he realizes that his one chance at love was blown, leaving him even more alone than he began.

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‘Uncle Ernest’ and ‘A Painful Case’ revolve around the same feelings. The story is about Ernest Brown, a single, upholsterer who was known as scruffy. Ernest was incredibly lonely. Ernest lives a life of routine, and visits the same cafe every day. His routine changed today, leaving him late to eat breakfast due to a previous job, which lasted longer than expected. While he eats his breakfast, he begins to think his life through questioning his existence upon the earth. He believes that he doesn’t deserve his position in life as all have his friends’ die in the war. ...

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