Loneliness, Grief, and the (Un)Caring State: Collective Ailments in Claudia Rankine’s "Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric"

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This essay analyzes Claudia Rankine’s “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric” (2004) from the perspective of “ugly feelings” (Ngai 2005), such as disavowed mourning (Butler 2004) or loneliness, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Following Judith Butler’s contention about the hindered possibility for community in the recognition of US national vulnerability, I will argue that Rankine’s work underscores the disparities in public recognition of grief and private care for Othered subjects’ pain in contemporary American society. In particular, “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely” displays a series of physical and mental collective ailments in US citizens, such as medicalized depression, as Rankine attempts to bear witness to the institutionalized injustice and erasure of the violence exerted upon America’s precarious bodies. The text enacts a form of recognition, only if temporary, through the fragmented use of the narrative/lyric ‘I,’ performatively demanding action from the reader.