Isolation

Isolation characterizes the experience of the narrator throughout the novel, in addition to his observation of the human experience.

When transported from home into the body of Andrew Martin, the narrator feels the isolation immediately, noting that the world around him is "the most alien place I had ever seen in my life” (17) and nothing like home. He is immediately treated like an outcast by everyone he encounters due to the crime of being naked in public, leading to a diagnosis of temporary insanity and committal to a psychiatric institution, which only compounds the isolation. However, even when he gradually adapts to life on Earth (including wearing clothes) the sense of remoteness from his home lingers. Especially through his vastly wider perspective of the size of the universe and the sheer distance between Earth and his home, he is all too aware of being the only...