Loneliness In Didion's Rock Of Age

Rock of Ages is a short essay in which Didion describes life on Alcatraz after a recent trip she took there. Didion uses tone, diction, and vivid descriptions to describe the irony of people happily living in Alcatraz after it has been abandoned. Didion uses diction to convey feelings of loneliness, with words like “empty” and “abandoned.” She also says that in order to like Alcatraz, “you have to want a moat.” She uses this phrase to emphasize how Alcatraz keeps people in just as much as it keeps people out. The idea of a moat illustrates how the island is separated from the places around it. In contrast, Didion creates a feeling of contentment, with words such as “devoid of human vanities.” Didion uses this phrase to convey how pure Alcatraz is without humans, which is ironic based on the setting. Didion uses tone to convey her overall meaning. The tone of the essay creates a feeling of contentment and happiness in the reader. Her use of tone is effective because she is able to make a normally depressing topic appear to be happy and almost peaceful. An

The very first sentence of the essay describes how the island is covered in flowers. Didion could have opened with a description of what Alcatraz once looked like, or of the prison’s current state. Opening with a beautiful description sets the stage for an optimistic view of Alcatraz. Didion later describes the prison itself by saying “any child could imagine a prison more like a prison than Alcatraz looks.” Didion describes Alcatraz as almost pitiful, with the way it has aged over the years. She is once again downplaying the usual feelings associated with the island. Later, Didion describes the prison nostalgically to further show how it is no longer what it once was. For example, she describes the cells in one of which was “a calendar, the months penciled in the wall with the days scratched off…of some unnumbered