Loneliness and isolation - analysing the evidence
After the war, Francis is still isolated from others
How does Cormier show this?
Example 1
Francis wants to find out where Nicole and her family moved to after the assault.
Evidence
I stand across the street for a long time, staring up at the blank windows with their white lace curtains.
...a child’s small face appears at a window on the second floor, like the ghost of the girl Nicole once had been.
...had the child been a momentary hallucination?
I sometimes stand in front of the convent and wonder whether the mystery of what has happened to Nicole is hidden within those walls.
Analysis
Francis is content just to stand below Nicole’s old apartment and remember her. He is surprised to see a little girl looking back at him, and he is confused as to whether she is real or imaginary. The reader could interpret this as arising from Francis’ profoundDeep. sense of isolation – is he inventing people?
After having no luck outside Nicole’s old apartment, he tries the convent where she was at school. The fact that he calls her disappearance a mystery emphasises how he has nobody to turn to for help or advice.
Example 2
The veterans in the St Jude’s Club are lonely even when they are together.
Evidence
There always comes a moment when a sudden quiet falls in the club...
Analysis
The ex-soldiers go to the bar to share memories as they have a drink, but they only talk to fill in the emptiness they feel as a result of their wartime action. Each man is isolated by his own particular experience which nobody else can really understand.
Nicole is isolated by what happens to her
How does Cormier show this?
Nicole and her family move away from Frenchtown, and nobody knows the reason.
Evidence
Who was I going to tell? My mother and father? It would have killed them...
So I didn’t tell anybody.
Analysis
The reader feels immense sympathy for the way that Nicole is left to deal with the situation all by herself. There is nobody in whom she can confide, so she just had to suffer in silence. The only other person who knew about it was Francis, but Nicole had driven him away.
Larry is lonely at the end
How does Cormier show this?
Francis visits Larry LaSalle in order to kill him, at the end of the novel.
Evidence
‘Come on in, the door’s not locked,’ Larry LaSalle calls out. That voice is unmistakable, but a bit feeble now...
It’s good of you to visit...
Analysis
Larry is obviously pleased to receive a visitor. Since he returned from the war he has been confined to his apartment because he has lost the use of his legs, presumably from a war injury. He seems to lead a lonely existence, being totally isolated from other humans.
Analysing the evidence
Question
How does Cormier explore the themes of loneliness and isolation?
Cormier shows the reader how people can be lonely at any time, even when they are amongst others. Through Francis’ narration we see that he is isolated, first by the loss of his parents and by his shyness as a child, and then by his injuries after the war.
The guilt he feels about not preventing Larry from raping Nicole forces him to bear the burden all alone. Nicole decides to cut herself off from other people after Larry rapes her, and Larry himself is isolated by his disability after the war.
Even the war veterans who drink at the St Jude’s Club are lonely in their own way, illustrated by the way that Francis describes the silence which falls over them as each man remembers his experiences fighting in the war.
