Theme

Alienation in literature

What alienation means in literature, why writers keep returning to it, and the 19 works in the StoryBites library that explore it.

What it means

Alienation is the experience of being cut off — from other people, from society, from one's own work or self. In modern literature especially it is the defining condition: a character surrounded by others yet fundamentally alone.

Why writers use it

Alienation gives voice to a distinctly modern ache and lets writers critique the systems — industrial, bureaucratic, social — that produce it.

19 works that explore alienation ↓

19 works
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