Humanity In The Loneliest Man By Joseph Theiss

Humanity: a peculiar thing. Every person born has had their own wants and desires, their own goals and abilities, but we all want to feel connected. Despite the differences each of us have with another, we strive every day to experience a part of our social bubble more. To varying degrees of severity we succeed, and so the issue sits in the back of our head acting as a weight we always carry. So, what if somebody lost this weight, what would they do? Author Joseph Theiss in his short story The Loneliest Man explores the reality of a man who is separated from the rest of humanity, and the toll he must pay for such a separation. Phrased as surrealistic, the story uses this idea of human connection as its fully realized metaphor. The story melds this imaginary concept of human connection with the real world by juxtaposing it with an object within the story. This object – the capsule – is what separates the protagonist from the rest of the world with an impassable distance. It also extends into the famous dream-like state of surrealism by disregarding …show more content…
During this scene the earth represents human connection as it is where every other human is and where his radio signals will come from. The earth also serves to contrast with the protagonist as in the capsule there exists but one lonely human, and down on earth there exists an innumerable amount. So, by using the radio to hear the voices of the people on earth the protagonist declares that he is in need of human connection, a complete switch from wanting to be alone in space. As time passes the protagonist wishes to repent his initial actions of being isolated so much so that he casts himself away from the capsule. This separation is the point in which the protagonist has given up wholly on the desire to be alone as “things were different now” because he now knows the importance of human