
Everyone has struggled with the anxious situation of wanting to say something during a group discussion in class but being too afraid of judgement or embarrassment to say anything; this is the story of poor Enoch Robinson’s life. In Sherwood Anderson’s “Loneliness,” he creates a relatable character named Enoch that grows up in a small farm town in rural Ohio with only his mother to keep him company. Enoch battles with wanting to be understood but not being able to let himself be understood throughout the story, and it is due to the fact that Enoch never really developed into a mentally matured adult, and he always lets his childlike instincts prohibit him from forming a true connection with any other human. The poor man fails to cope with adulthood’s realities and essentially remains a child within his own mind for his entire life. By analyzing Enoch Robinson’s childhood environment and his social interactions with other people, it is apparent this his upbringing prevented him from maturing mentally which left Enoch incapable of letting anyone get too close to him or understand him, and this is important because it explains why Enoch struggles communicating with others and expressing his true feelings.

Saying that Enoch grew up in an isolated environment would be an understatement because the young boy lived in a secluded farm house in a rural town where they kept the curtains closed, and the only way Enoch had to entertain himself was to sit in his room and imagine his own friends like most children do. Unfortunately for Enoch, being trapped in an isolated environment for so long rendered him socially awkward and incapable of expressing himself. The only company the quiet boy had on his farm were his mother and the animals they kept on the farm, and this leads Enoch to be controlling for the rest of his life because he has full reign over his imaginary friends and his family’s animals. When Enoch did leave the house to go to school or go into town, he kept to himself and was completely chained to his own mind, and Anderson depicts an example of this when he says, “Drivers of teams had to shout and swear to make him realize where he was so that he would turn out of the beaten track and let them pass’ (93.) Enoch was so enveloped in his own mind and so distanced from the people in his environment, that sometimes he was utterly separated from what was going on around him.

After turning twenty-one, Enoch decides to move to New York City and enroll in an art school because he has a talent for drawing and painting and believes that he will be able to express his true feelings through his paintings. The city is far too grown up for Enoch’s immature mindset, and he struggles even more to understand the people around him and the challenges he faces, and Anderson demonstrates this predicament when he says, “He never grew up and of course he couldn’t understand people and he couldn’t make people understand him” (92.) Enoch’s inability to mentally mature makes it hard for him to be understood and he struggles to adjust to adulthood as he is uncomfortable with financial responsibility, has a hard time seeing the value in others’ opinions, and is terrified of sexual intimacy. The first instance in his life where he has a chance to share a sexual connection with someone, Enoch panics and runs away because he secretly fears being truly connected or understood by anyone other than himself or the people of his imagination.

Desiring human connection, Enoch begins inviting some of the young men from his art school over to his apartment to discuss art and particularly Enoch’s art hoping that his new friends will gain a deeper understanding of him through his work. Enoch’s paintings contain things that allow the viewer to better understand him, and he yearns for his friends to see the true meaning of his work, but he struggles so much with expressing himself and letting people understand him, that Enoch ultimately just remains silent while the other artists incorrectly interpret his paintings. After growing tired of not being able to express himself through his art, Enoch stops inviting the other artists to his room, and this is a perfect example of his immature mentality because if Enoch does not get his way or achieve what he wants, he just gives up. Resorting to pushing himself deeper into isolation just makes Enoch’s ability to communicate with others and search for a send of being understood even more difficult, and this decision to push himself further away from society exacerbates Enoch’s already severe social inhibitions. 

Growing tired of struggling for so long to make humans understand him, Enoch locks himself into his New York apartment and reverts back to a childlike habit of creating imaginary friends. Just as he did as a child in his room in Winesburg, Ohio, Enoch fabricates his own social circle full of people that each represent a conglomerate of aspects he has seen in people he has met throughout his life. Even in his twenties, Enoch is still choosing to create his own friends instead of dealing with real people, and this is what he was used to doing in the environment he grew up in because he was so separated from the rest of the people in his town. Sherwood Anderson describes how Enoch controls his imaginary people when he says, “They might talk, to be sure, and even have opinions of their own, but always he talked last and best” (94.) This relates back to Enoch’s childlike need to have control over everything and to be the biggest and most respected personality in the room. He has control over his fabricated people like he had control over the animals on his farm, and if Enoch has control over what his imaginary friends think and say, then he no longer has to battle with understanding other peoples’ opinions.

Spending so much time separated from other people leaves Enoch lusting for human contact and intimacy, and he becomes interested in becoming involved with adult responsibilities and realities, so he decides to get married to a girl he met in art school, and they have two children together. This is the first instance where it seems like Enoch is developing into a mature person, but his inability to let anyone get too close to him eventually destroys all the progress he made. Enoch’s mental immaturity prevents him from being able to hold a connection with someone long enough to maintain a marriage, and Anderson depicts this when he says, “He began to feel choked and walled in by the life in the apartment” (95.) Enoch cannot cope with having to deal with other people all the time, and begins taking walks around the city at night just so he can be with his own thoughts. No matter how hard Enoch tries to mature, he always returns to the safety of his childlike state of mind and his imagination, and he even goes as far as to rent his old apartment again so he can go there and be in his fabricated world. Eventually Enoch feels too walled in by his marriage and decides to leave his wife and move back into his old room near Washington Square.

Even though he tries so hard to push himself completely away from everyone around him, a quiet woman from across the hall begins coming into Enoch’s room, and he begins to feel an urge to touch, connect, and be understood by her, but he still struggles with letting anyone understand him or have any sort of control over him. Enoch thinks he will be overpowered and replaced if the woman actually understands him, and he continue to go through the paradoxical cycle of wanting to be understood, but not letting anyone understand. Enoch’s child mentality makes it hard to connect with someone who seems so mature, and this is exemplified when he says “She was so grown up. She was a woman. I thought she would be bigger than I was there in that room” (Anderson 97.) He cannot handle anyone being a bigger personality than him in his own room; he has to appear as the highest authority in the room to himself, and this leads him to push the woman from across the hall away. 

Through taking a closer look at Enoch Robinson isolated childhood and countless failures in overcoming social insecurities, it is obvious that he was never truly able to find understanding in anyone else because he was so mentally immature and could not allow anyone to have any sort of control over his mindset. Even though he attempted to connect with people numerous times, Enoch ultimately spoiled his own efforts by pushing people away when they got to close and reverting back to enveloping himself into his own mind. The people he fabricated allowed him to avoid the realities of adult life and to preserve his state of mental immaturity. Maybe things would have turned out for Enoch if he was raised in a more social environment, but his sheltered upbringing rendered him impotent when it came to growing up mentally.
