Summary Of The Box Man

In the essay “The Box Man”, Ascher contemplates isolation and solitude, and the significance it holds for different people. She describes the experience of three solitary people: a homeless man, and two ladies. The homeless man is the most alone of them all, by every meaning of the word; he has isolated himself from society, and by doing so, society has isolated itself from him. But despite all this, he would choose no alternative. The homeless man is certainly alone, but he is happy. The two ladies lie on the opposite side of the spectrum. They, too, are consumed by loneliness, but in a different sense of the word. They yearn for company, they surround themselves with other people, or cats and plants. They are not necessarily alone in the