Author's commonly use the character's setting and surrounding to depict isolation. With the setting, an author can set the mood of the story and make symbolisms in the surroundings. Setting can easily help represent the theme of isolation by portraying darkness, nighttime, winter, etc. The character's in the stories actions, moods, and thoughts can even be influenced and altered by the story's setting. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, used the jungles of the Congo to represent darkness and push the character, Marlow, further into isolation. The surroundings of the Congo begin to get to Marlow's mind, slowly altering his mental state . Edgar Allen Poe used the Winter setting and the time of night to give a sense of death or evil in The Raven. Charlotte Gilman ,also, showed the theme of isolation through the setting of the woman's room in The Yellow Wall-Paper.
             Joseph Conrad's, The Heart of Darkness, showed it's main characters, Marlow and Kurtz, drift in isolation away from the world around them by the influence of the setting, the Congo. The Congo is never portrayed as a pleasurable place. Marlow's first description of the river is that it "has been one of the darkest places of the earth"(234). The affect of the Congo becomes too much for Marlow and Kurtz to handle the deeper and more involved in the jungles they get. Marlow, Kurtz, and the other members of the crews are still exploring the river and jungles, bringing Christianity and civilization to this crude culture. All of it is completely unknown and terrifying. Even though the Congo is unexplored and dangerous, Marlow can't help but be captivated by the feeling of anticipation and curiousness. Marlow often compares the river to a snake. He calls it fascinating, and in one passage proclaims, " The snake has charmed me" (.237). One feature of the Congo that seems to effect Marlow the most ...