Loneliness and Isolation

The author uses this theme to emphasize the fundamental loneliness of the human condition, particularly through the lens of the character referred to as the Visitor. This character has recently arrived in Berlin with no clear mission other than to investigate the city's history. She has no family except an adult daughter who lives in Spain, and she feels “unoccupied, disconnected, alone, invisible” (6). She wanders the city feeling terribly lonely until she begins to talk to the locals, and the novel is her record of these conversations. These brief connections help the Visitor to feel less forlorn. The author alludes to the Visitor's loneliness again in the introduction to Part III, stating that for her, “Sundays were her hardest days. The families were out, picknicking in the parks, strolling down the fine avenues or along the Spree River” (109). The Visitor is troubled by these...