Isolation In Brave New World

10th Honors Literature
Isolation’s Pains and Complications
The experience of isolation has a profound effect on the psychological health of an individual. The first type of isolation, forced isolation, is the least detrimental because a higher command has ordered the isolation and it cannot be changed. Not fitting into the social landscape or norm, and therefore becoming ostracized leads to social isolation, or the second type of isolation. Lastly, self-inflicted isolation is perhaps the most severe because internal psychological factors contribute to it, making it harder to overcome, and, therefore, the most harmful. In Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Huxley’s Brave New World, each of the types of
Unlike McMurphy, Simon does not revel his isolation and instead chooses to isolate himself further by wandering into the forest wilderness and away from the rest of the group. Simon’s seizures and shyness lead to the other older boys ignoring him when he does try to talk at their meetings, even though Simon has the most insightful thoughts out of any of them. In addition to being the most insightful, Simon also experiences an altered perception of reality when he imagines “. . . Lord of the Flies was expanding like a balloon. . . blackness within, a blackness that spread” (Golding,143-144).When Simon walks out of the forest with the body of the dead parachutist, the boys, in a social gathering of their own, immediately kill him. By not joining the other boys in the feast, Simon highlights his social isolation. This eventually leads to his death. All of the rest of the young boys, including Ralph and Piggy take part in the feast. The only boy missing is Simon, further exemplifying to what extent his social isolation reached. In this fatal feast, which Simon does not partake in, the others brutally murder him, mistaking him for the beast. Simon’s social ostracization and therefore isolation from the other boys eventually leads to his savage murder proving that when Simon is not part of the norm, because of his frequent
Forced isolation of McMurphy and the social isolation of Simon eventually lead to saddening deaths but perhaps the most shattering is the suicide of John. Self-inflicted isolation creates many internal barriers psychologically, which are much harder to break down than external barriers such as the ones experienced by Simon or McMurphy. When McMurphy goes against the instituted rules of the ward, authoritative figures carry out his punishment. On the other hand, John was his own authoritative figure and was far more brutal on himself than any other person would have been. He did not let himself forget his transgressions easily and brutally punished himself if he did. This internal conflict within the confines of a mind leads to more insurmountable barriers than an external conflict between two individuals. Though present in many forms, isolation, a detrimental barrier that arises because of many reasons, eventually leads to one common effect: the degradation of psychological health and perception of