Isolation and Community

The practical realities of life in the village form a tension between isolation and community that distinctly parallel the tensions between loyalty to oneself and loyalty to other people. In the novel’s setting of a rural Polish village, Janina lives a fairly isolated and reclusive life in a cabin in the woods. Janina’s narration establishes the conditions of isolation as both geographical and meteorological: “Our hamlet consists of a few houses…far from the rest of the world…In winter the wind becomes violent and shrill” (32). However, Janina occasionally spends time with her neighbors or visits more densely populated areas. On a symbolic level, the juxtaposition of these social/antisocial modes mirrors Janina’s fluctuations between self-isolation and desire to help others. Unfortunately, as the novel ending reveals, Janina’s desire to help others is mostly limited to helping animals and hurting...