Dorothy Day

Great American writers often produce work that does more than entertain their audience. Great American writers have aimed to capture the attention of their respective societies and always make sure their work includes a teaching aspect, one that aims to teach the reader a lesson, usually about life or values. One of these great American writers was Dorothy Day. Dorothy Day was a journalist by trade, as well as a social activist and an upstanding Catholic. Day was raised an agnostic, meaning her family did not practice a religion. However, she attended church services with friends. Dorothy found a sense of passion in the congregational worship of the church, and those close to her said she could have been an excellent preacher of the gospel. However, she felt discouraged by so many people who attended church only on Sunday and thought
Day also held a very communal outlook on the church and salvation. She says in The Long Loneliness that “it is the people that matter, not the masses.” This line connects with a line in the excerpt that reads, “We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other” (The Long Loneliness 98). Day takes a stance as a theological author here and makes a claim for the soul. Love and salvation (two of Day’s major themes) are truly fulfilled when the individual is valued before the group, and the soul of an individual is a precious thing, desperately needing to be nurtured with love before it can unlock its true potential. Her desire for the church and religion to focus on the individual go hand in hand with her beliefs about the community. A community can only function when all of the members within that community are functioning for the better of those around them, and it is easier for people to see themselves as a functioning part of a community when they feel comfortable and accepted as an