Isolation In Alone By Edgar Allan Poe

For my thematic thread, I chose to answer the question of how isolation impacts the individual. The topic first peaked my interest primarily because I initially wanted to know how one’s subjective views and the ideas presented by their culture merged to help establish new perspectives. However, I soon realized that isolation is the best circumstance to evaluate such a thought, for it is a state where the mind is most vulnerable to exploring both new and preexisting concepts, thus making one more susceptible to combining their personal beliefs with the beliefs found within their particular culture. Furthermore, isolation, whether desired or feared, is an inevitable component that each individual will have to endure at several points throughout
Therefore, prolonged states, for a person who would prefer frequent interaction, of isolation leads to the gradual destruction of self perception. For example, in the poem “Alone”, by Edgar Allan Poe, the speaker wallows within his lonesomeness in the statement, “And the cloud that took the form /(When the rest of Heaven was blue) /Of a demon in my view—” (Alone, 20-22). The speaker notes the significant difference in the way he perceives life, in regards to the shape he gives the cloud, in contrast to his fellow peers, thus he is unable to fully relate to them, which drives him further into a state, with his acknowledgment, of growing isolation and division. Similarly to Stephen Dedalus, Esther, from The Bell Jar, undergoes a struggle with religious piety, found within the characteristics of betsy, and a more rebellious nature, found in Doreen, but is unable to find any interest in either. Furthermore, Esther’s natural behavior is constantly in discordance with how someone would normally react to her circumstances. The build up of Esther's isolation is expressed in the statement, “[W]herever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air” (TBJ,15). Gradually, her impending isolation caused her to descend into madness and eventually try to kill herself. Therefore, Esther’s circumstances highlight the occasional inevitable nature of isolation, and how, even if isolation is caused by one’s natural behavior, it can still plague one’s life and cause them great suffering. Isolation can often be caused by imperfections that make it challenging for a particular person to belong to