Texts dealing with isolation

[fayhound]

Hi, I was wondering if anybody could recommend any books/poems/movies dealing with the theme of isolation, whether physical or social. I have a school research project due in a few weeks, so i'd appreciate any help.

[hedbanger]

Google it. =)

[ShoutGrace]

Robert Frost's poetry might be interesting to look at from this perspective - "Mending Wall" especially treats the subject of constructed isolation.

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" has themes of alienation, isolation and reservation, in both physical and social senses (depending on how you are using the terms).

Is it just the theme of "isolation" specifically that you've been asked to research? There are all different isolations, too, ranging from externally enforced isolation to isolation as a result of miscommunication and/or misunderstanding.

[dramasnot6]

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

[JuLe]

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

[motherhubbard]

Blue Winds Dancing, Tom Whitecloud

Paul's Case, Willa Cather

The Portable Phonograph, Walter Van Tilburg Clark

Richard Cory, Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Unknown Citizen, W.H. Auden

all are very short so you could go through quickly for quotes

[kilted exile]

Less than zero

Whatever

Catcher in the rye

[hastalavictoria]

The Bell Jar

[Embellished]

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story which deals with isolation in its most 'raw' form (so to speak). It also deals with issues of femininity such as the misrepresentation of women in society. You could look at the contexts of it also - female oppression as a result of a patriarchal society. The story is really short but is also fantastic - I'm sure you would really enjoy it.

Also, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey deals with the isolation of (what some would say) is the protagonist: Chief Bromden. He is isolated for a number of reasons: his race, his size, but also (and probably most interestingly) because he isolates himself; he has, after all, pretended to be deaf and dumb in order to evade the society in which he lives.

In The Snack-Bar by Edwin Morgan is a (not-so-good) poem which deals with the isolation of an old man as a result of how he looks; there is a lot of imagery and description about his "hands like wet leaves" and how "his life depends on many who would evade him".

Also, if you get a chance to read Mailman by J. Robert Lennon, you will see how the protagonist, Mailman, isolates himself from society because he believes that society is against him at all costs. It is a really funny read, which I'm sure anyone with a light sense of humour would enjoy.

Finally, Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is a short(ish) story about a young lad, Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one morning as a bug. His family (from this moment on) shun him and isolate him from coming out of his room, which is ultimately the forces of repression which kills him. Another funny read, but also has a serious message: if family can isolate you for how you look, who can you trust?

Hope that helps you! :-)

[Embellished]

I almost forgot. You could also argue that Shakespeare's King Lear deals with issues of isolation, as the play's protagonist (King Lear) faces isolation from those who claimed to worship him, and just because he decided to split his kingdom between his nasty daughters, Goneril and Regan. Good luck!

[Virgil]

I don't know if it was mentioned, but just about any of Virginia Woolf's novels, Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, The Waves. Those are the ones I have personally read and can confirm that isolation is a theme.

[tudwell]

Anything by Dostoevsky.

[Stieg]

Obvious choices:

1984

Brave New World

I Am Legend

[Virgil]

Oh goodness, how can we forget Joseph Conrad: Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, Victory. Probably all of his works deal with isolation in some fashion.

[Turk]

Anything by Dostoevsky.

:thumbs_up

Notably Notes From Underground, one of my favorite books.

[ShoutGrace]

My first question on reading the opening post was what "isolation" could be defined as. That was why I hesitated to answer definitively. I think that, as Embellished explained above, The Yellow Wallpaper is perhaps the best example possible (according to one view of the word).

[Quark]

Some poems by Byron have an isolation theme--"The Prisoner of Chillon" comes to mind.

There's a short story by Thomas Mann called "Tobias Mindernickel" which centers on an isolated individual who befriends a dog.

Jude the Obscure's two protagonists Sue and Jude are very isolated characters.

Silas Marner by George Eliot is a story about a person losing faith and going into solitude.

Another good one is "The Wanderer", an Early English elegy, written about an exiled retainer longing for his previous life.

[fayhound]

Thanks for all the ideas everyone. I asked my teacher and she suggested quite a few of those books, so I think I might have a lot of reading to do...

I'm just going to focus on social isolation, and deal with ideas such as what causes it, how characters respond to it, and what it reveals about the society in which the text is set etc.

[Dark Star]

I Am Legend

Definitely!:thumbs_up

[NickAdams]

With all of your reading a film would be nice: Taxi Driver.

[aabbcc]

F. Dostoevsky - Notes from the Underground (though really, virtually anything by him does capture that theme in some way)
L. Pirandello - Il fu Mattia Pascal
M. Lermontov - A Hero of Our Time
Any of Russian literature with the concept of лишний человек
Those were the first ones to cross my mind.

In any case, it is all about knowing how to see what you want to see and how to be able to connect the most unconnected of things. If you want to, you can see isolation issues in phonebooks and make a philosophy out of it. :D It is all about how good with words you are, technically in any work you can find the elements of anything you wish.
Irresponsible as I tend to be, I was one late to library to pick books for an essay which was, of course, due next day (I am one of those last-minute people :D), and which was supposed to research the element of guilt in literary works, so I got stuck with Crime and Punishment and the only other useful book a friend I was staying at had was a collection of traditional children's fairy tales; and no matter how crazy it might sound, I actually managed to write a work finding issues of guilt in fairy tales :D So trust me, if you know how to write, and if you can see what you want in a work, you can almost literally pick any literary work and you will do fine.

[aabbcc]

One more thing I thought of, if you like Kafka, Amerika is an excellent choice. But my point from previous post still stands, you can do anything.

[Stieg]

The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Native Son by Richard Wright are two notorious works on this theme.

[fayhound]

Originally posted by Anastasija
If you want to, you can see isolation issues in phonebooks and make a philosophy out of it.

That could be interesting... :D

I know what you mean though. Reminds me of this site I saw once, claiming that The Lion King was racist. Backed it up fairly well too.

I'm toying with the idea of writing about Snape from Harry Potter, since he's such an interesting and ambiguous character (at the moment anyway). And I'll probably use Pink Floyd's The Wall as well. Still searching for my other texts though.

[ThousandthIsle]

The most recent book I've read that would make an excellent candidate is Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Different types of isolation appear through various characters, such as social ostracism, self-alienation, acting in self-interest, etc. It's enlightening to see how different types of isolation yield different results. Isolation, as illustrated by Tolstoy, can be beneficial to a person's "character" or soul, or it can be a downward spiral of deterioration.

[falcochick]

Oh Alissa do your autobiography or my biography or maybe just the tangled love story that we weave.......