Loneliness and Isolation

There are many characters in this novel that experience loneliness and isolation, both as a desire for it, and as a result of something happening to them. The people who chose to live alone, like Lars and Trond, as well as Trond's father, want to be separated from the larger world, and in particular the people who've placed demands on them their whole life. They seek freedom in the ruggedness of the wilderness.

Trond hints that his mother suffers horribly from loneliness, both during the war, and then after the war when Trond's father leaves them. Though she is not physically isolated, she isolates herself in later years, Trond reports, and never is able to recover from being abandoned by Trond's father.

Loneliness and Isolation are also touched upon as a result of the war. The war left many people without spouses or family...