Depersonalization and alienation

The subdued and monochromatic tone of the two novellas as well as the poetry could be emblematic of how human thought and experience has been truncated in the high-tech modern world of computers, mega-corporations and modern alienation in "the lonely crowd." It is significant that the outrageous drunkard, inBOIL, who breaks all the rules of the group at iDeath In Watermelon Sugar, and thus becomes estranged from his peers, "drops out" of that society and goes to live at the Forgotten Works. The Forgotten Works is the name of an old factory of some kind whose purpose haqs been forgotten, left behind in the scramble for speed and efficiency in acquiring capital. This can be read as a commentary on the mechanized world that has no time for the strange, the odd, or different. Brautigan attacks The Establishment head-on in Trout Fishing in America as he...