Isolation could contribute to stress, loneliness, a decline in health and mental breakdown. In the book The Martian, written by Andy Weir, astronaut Mark Watney was stranded on Mars after failing to escape a disastrous sandstorm. This brave botanist was isolated from the entire mankind; he was separated from his crew, and lost the ability to contact them or the Hermes. Mark miraculously survived the sandstorm and made it to safety. However, he was faced with even more difficult challenges; he only had a limited amount of food and water, and a declining amount of oxygen. Moreover, feelings of fear, isolation and stress haunted his life. But instead of taking the easy way out, Mark chose to keep a positive …show more content…
After spending approximately three months with absolutely no contact to mankind, Mark is starting to become desperate to reach out for any human contact. "Jesus Christ, I'd give anything for a five-minute conversation with anyone. Anyone, anywhere. About anything." (Weir, 99) The desire to communicate with someone has never been so intense for Mark; it has been eighty-nine sols on Mars and he has rarely talked about how lonely he felt, but now he is in urgent need of human contact. It is very interesting to see how someone as intelligent as Mark, who has spent many days tackling impossible challenges but all he needs now is to have someone to talk to. Maybe his will of living was so strong that he forgot the fact that he was away from all of the others, or maybe he was just trying to hide his feelings. But for whatever reason, knowing that he has a low chance of talking to someone, Mark's willingness to live became even stronger; it is a huge motivation to Mark's survival, he now has a more achievable goal and is desperate to