Isolation

Page 1 of Driving Alone at Night

This picture depicts the only image that appears throughout the interactive story. It is a "GIF" that shows a car driving alone at night, which fits the title of the piece. To be more specific, the image shows a first-person view of the outside of the vehicle from the inside, simulating the reader being the driver. This person, though, drives for hours upon hours contemplating life and life once lived. As Rokach mentions in The Correlates of Loneliness, "It is necessary to distinguish...aloneness, and loneliness. One is the objective state of being alone or in solitude, which may be a desired or non-lonely situation, The other is the subjective state of feeling lonely, which may occur in a situation of personal isolation, or may be felt amid others" (9). Many times when people hear of somebody being alone or isolated, it is perceived as a bad thing. In this interactive story, though, being alone in a car, driving indefinitely on the freeway allows for a meditative and restorative clearing of the mind. The idea that being alone can be a good thing is shown within this work. At the very beginning of the story, it asks the player if they want to go for a drive or stay home. Clicking "stay home" leads to just one screen that says "You stare at your ceiling, frustrated without cause. Just like every other day this month, you feel dissatisfied. Maybe you'll know why tomorrow" and then it is over. This feeling of unfulfillment is there because she was not able to get in the right isolated environment and headspace to understand. Overall, this differentiation is important, as people can use isolation to their advantage. 

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