“I Am a Rock” by Paul Simon is a poem about keeping others out in order to protect oneself. To avoid pain people will often put up barriers to stop others who could hurt them from getting too close to them. This Fear of being hurt can lead people to become solitary and act as if they have no feelings, when really they have just built a barrier so great that no emotion or person can get in and no emotion can be released. The person in this poem has likely been hurt by the people they trusted most and in turn decided that love and trust was something he should avoid seeking from others. To show this they use word choice, symbolism and repetition to reinforce that they are strong and isolated from others so that they can not be hurt further.
