Loneliness

Author Sherman Alexis explores the theme of loneliness through several main characters in his story and poem collection War Dances. Loneliness in the collection comes as a result of personal choices, situations out of one’s hands, and as a result of difficult times and situations. The loneliness suffered by the characters of the collection therefore affects each one in different ways.

In “The Limited,” the narrator feels lonely because he knows as a poet he cannot change the world and can only change himself. In “Breaking and Entering,” George Wilson’s self-defense killing of a black teen that breaks into his house leads to his alienation by the media and his own wife, all who suspect racial motives and hotheadedness. In “Bird-Watching at Night,” the narrator feels lonely now that he is older, and looks back to when he had a girlfriend who broke up...