Summary of Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 My mother’s family history is rich with tradition. She told me stories of when she was a little girl, and I loved hearing about her family’s history. It gave me a sense of continuity.

#2 We have lost our culture and our faith, and we are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We have adopted a bourgeois mediocrity that would make it seem like we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington.

#3 We did not search for God when we were children. We took Him for granted. We were taught to say our evening prayers, and then we would not pray anymore unless a thunderstorm made us hide our heads under the covers and propitiate the Deity by promising to be good.

#4 I can remember my religious experiences from when I was a child. I can remember the happy hours on the beach with my brothers, and fishing in a creek for eels, and running away with a younger cousin to an abandoned shack in a waste of swamp around Fort Hamilton.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822525825

IRB Media

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Insights on Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

My mother’s family history is rich with tradition. She told me stories of when she was a little girl, and I loved hearing about her family’s history. It gave me a sense of continuity.

#2

We have lost our culture and our faith, and we are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We have adopted a bourgeois mediocrity that would make it seem like we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington.

#3

We did not search for God when we were children. We took Him for granted. We were taught to say our evening prayers, and then we would not pray anymore unless a thunderstorm made us hide our heads under the covers and propitiate the Deity by promising to be good.

#4

I can remember my religious experiences from when I was a child. I can remember the happy hours on the beach with my brothers, and fishing in a creek for eels, and running away with a younger cousin to an abandoned shack in a waste of swamp around Fort Hamilton.

#5

I was extremely pious when I was young, and I believed in God but did not know what I believed in. I was afraid of death, and I was afraid of eternity. I did not believe in God, but I was afraid of nothingness.

#6

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 destroyed much of the city, but none of our house. My father was sports editor of one of the San Francisco papers, and he said that the night before had been a sultry one, which led to the horses being restless. The earthquake began with a deep rumbling, and the earth became a sea which rocked our house.

#7

My mother and father moved to Chicago, and my father found an apartment for us near the lake. We lived in a tenement, and there were other children to play with.

#8

I had a sister, Mary, who was five years older than me. We had begun to help our mother with the dishes and housecleaning, and we felt important. I had never had to do without a servant before, and the household tasks were too much for my mother.

#9

My father was a newspaperman, and he had the old-fashioned and