The strangers would stop smiling then, and often snarl something nasty - as if the Joneses had snarled at them. (Black,2)
There's a conversation that hasn't been had, I tell Sam. The conversation human beings have with each other. He with each other. He isn't quite treating us like people. (Gould, 36)
People keep shutting them out because there don't fit in to society and they don't want to hear them out. They also made there problems worse by examination of x thinking that they solve the problem, and Ruth's neighbour fencing off land because you want to solve the problems of your own life without thinking of the others involved.
These two stories show similarities in secrets, and issues and problems even though there troubles that may be big or small, their secrets are kept to themselves and are ignored by society's way of thinking shutting both characters in the story out making life for them slightly or majorly hard by doing what in their best interests to do. Secrets can be hard to open, if no one understands the people around