Alienated People

The Oxford dictionary defines alienation as; to estrange, isolate,

detach, distance, to put a distance, to turn away from another person.

Alienation, like a lot of other social attitudes and concepts, can give a

wide variety of interests. I have found six main points in The Encyclopedia

of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Psychoanalysis that have gotten the most

attention and things written about alienation; A) Powerlessness: The feeling,

belief, or expectancy that a persons behavior can't control some events

whether positive or negative, B) Meaninglessness: The person feels

incomprehensive in his/her social life and feels the "absurdity of life", C)

Normlessness: High expectancies for, or commitment to socially unapproved

ways to achieving a goal, one will go about achieving a goal in a not

normally excepted way, D) Cultural Estrangement: person's individual values

rejected by society, the image that the alienated value's not being standard

to that of the environment around him/her, E) Social Isolation: The

individuals low expectancy for inclusion and social exceptance, being lonely

and commonly found a member of a minority or physically disabled, F) Self

Estrangement: This focuses on the discrepancy or differences between one's

ideal self and one's actual self.

In the novel, The Metamorphosis, Gregor wakes up one morning as a giant

insect and feels out of place. When Gregor sees his father and his attitude

to him, Gregor feels alienated in that fact that his father yells and shows

his anger and frustration to his son and throws an apple which gets stuck in

his slimy backside. His father feels Gregor has not become successful and a

failure. He probably also feels that he has let his sister down along with

his mother for not being supportive enough as the father was not.

Continuing with the same concept of Mr. Samsa not being a good father,

Gregor felt alienated again by his mother and sister by not filling