Isolation In Swamplandia

Jodie Picoult once said, “If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” This is true in many things that it could be compared to, but especially in the book Swamplandia. Swamplandia tells us a story of a family who runs an alligator amusement park; a husband, wife, and three children. In the midst of the park, the wife passes away from ovarian cancer. This takes a huge toll on the husband, and the kids. The husband starts making "business trips" to the city, the oldest, Kiwi, leaves the park and moves into the city to work and support his sisters. Ossie falls in love with a ghost and runs away, and Ava the too trusting of people 13 year old, runs off with a man of bad intentions in a quest to save her sister. The story has a definite underlying teaching about the positives and negatives of isolation, and you can read it in the stories of the three children: Kiwi, Ossie, and Ava.
Ava is the most optimistic 13 year old, her outlook on life is incredibly …show more content…
She began creating an alternative reality for herself with a ouija board, and in the communications she had with ghosts, she used this new reality to revert her attention away from the traumatic event. She fell in love with a ghost that she had been communicating with, Ossie would leave at all times of the night in order to spend time with him. This would worry her family at all times of the night. This worrying led Ava on a quest to save her. Very determined, Ava allowed the companionship of the Birdman, and eventually led to the rape. After being rescued, Ossie eventually was sent to a psychiatrist in order to treat the voices she was hearing in her head, later diagnosed as a mental disorder. This all due to the isolation of herself so that she could avoid the heartbreak of losing her mother at such a young