See subject.

I think it is a state, not an emotion.

I'm inclined to agree, but you can feel lonely and feel sad.

There is the state of sadness when you feel the emotion of sadness.

Is the state of loneliness not feeling the emotion of loneliness?

G

I think it is an emotion, like sadness or happinness or whatever.

Being alone is a state, and one day you may love it and the next hate it. But loneliness is a feeling, though you may not even be technically alone when you're feeling it, and equally you can feel lonely one day and not the next, when nothing external has changed at all.

Emma

Marvlious,

I agree. In fact, I think it is a core emotion.

Cath

I think it is an emotion, not a state. As in books which say the room was crowded with people yet he she or it was so terribly alone. Although not literally.

...Which I can now see has already been said.

I guess I'm thinking of when you say

I am lonely - seems like a state
but you could also have
I feel lonely - seems like an emotion

I am happy - state
I feel happy - emotion

etc.

But I am lonely is saying the same thing as I feel lonely. Being lonely is a state of mind, so therefore it's an emotion. And it’s very different from saying I am alone, which could be either a state of mind or a physical fact.

From a writing point of view, to me, I am lonely carries far more impact than the more passive I feel lonely.

Dee

But I am lonely is saying the same thing as I feel lonely.

Yes, and then again, at least for me, no...

I agree that they're close cousins, but I'd tend to use the former for something more long term - closer to a state (how vague all these terms are!) - and the latter for the emotion you're feeling in your solar plexus or whatever:

I live on my own in a cottage at the end of a long lane. I am lonely, but today the sun is shining and...

I wave my daughter off on the train and turn away. Walking through the station I feel lonely, and decide to...

Though actually I tend to avoid 'feel' for this kind of thing - it's a bit tell-y. Though of course it might be right if the narrator is telling the reader about what happened to them earlier.

Emma

I clicked on this because I'm reading a novel in which the main mood/state/emotion is loneliness. It's 'Strangers' the latest, as far as I Know, from Anita Brookner.

She's one of my favourites and all her books are much the same, all about loneliness.

But I wonder what you mean by asking whether loneliness 'counts' as an emotion. Are you entering a competition where there has to be a main emotion on which the story is based?

Obviously, I think loneliness well counts as an emotion, and I'd guess so does Anita Brookner. With luck, she might even be on the panel of judges!

Sheila

I wonder what you mean by asking whether loneliness 'counts' as an emotion

I'm beginning to wonder if I wear a dark-cape and loiter in shadowy corners on WW as everyone seems to suspect me of ulterior motives!

Are you entering a competition where there has to be a main emotion on which the story is based?

Nothing so useful, regrettably.

Just a routine "does this paragraph work?" piece of writerly paranoia on my part. Something along the lines of a maelstrom of mixed emotions converting as a torrent of one single emotion... and, yes, there was a certain amount of wailing, also gnashing of teeth.

G




<Added>

For "converting" please read "converging".

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you were being secretive. It was 'count' that made me curious.


Do you mean you wrote something like: 'He felt an overwhelming emotion, a mix of loneliness, fear and depression, wash over him.', then wondered if loneliness is an emotion. For that matter, I wonder, too, about depression,

I do amire exactitude and precision, especially when it comes to words.

Sheila

Ya see, now that really is a problem.

Depression is a sickness, a state and a terrible thing to suffer. You can "feel" depressed, but depression is not an emotion, rather a randomly intense, then unbearably numb, collection of symptoms, emotions and general disconnection from the whole.

Using the test above:
I am depressed is a state but usually refers to the emotion of grieflike sadness
I feel depressed is a statement of emotion but usually refers to the emotion of moderate sadness

Most references to depression only cover the grumpy end of the spectrum and ignore the desperate attempts to feel something more satisfying.

So can depression ever be described as an emotion and, if not, what does that do for the proof of loneliness being an emotion?

G

<Added>

Perhaps depression is to emotion as dark is to light?

Lovely

Yes, you are right, I was thinking grumpiness, not 'clinical' depression, which sounds pretty desperate, I must say.

Sheila