This classic follows Holden Caulfield, a teenager who struggles with disillusionment, alienation, and feelings of isolation. During his days wandering New York City, Holden experiences loneliness even when surrounded by people.
He tries connection after connection, but never truly fits in. Salinger’s novel captures a particular kind of adolescent loneliness—one that comes from feeling misunderstood and disconnected.
Holden’s honest voice and raw search for companionship make “The Catcher in the Rye” a memorable exploration of what it’s like to be young and utterly alone in the world.
On the surface, Eleanor Oliphant leads an ordinary, predictable life. She’s deeply solitary, with her days perfectly scheduled—until she unexpectedly makes a friend.
The novel highlights Eleanor’s intense loneliness, her awkward attempts at social interactions, and her hidden pain. Through small steps toward friendship, Eleanor learns about human connection and intimacy.
Honeyman sensitively shows how deep-rooted loneliness can shape a person’s life, thoughts, and choices, and also how genuine kindness from others can offer hope.
“Stoner” tells the quiet story of William Stoner, an English professor whose life is defined by disappointments, missed opportunities, and emotional distance. Throughout his teaching career and failed marriage, Stoner endures loneliness and longing.
He feels disconnected even in his closest relationships. Williams crafts a beautifully understated portrayal of how personal isolation can consume a person’s life, resulting in a haunting image of a man profoundly alone despite family, colleagues, and students around him.
Frankenstein isn’t just a horror story; it’s also a novel about profound isolation. Victor Frankenstein isolates himself during obsessive experiments. Meanwhile, his creature experiences deep loneliness, rejected by society and desperately seeking companionship.
Both creations—scientist and monster—face isolation and estrangement from human connection, demonstrating Shelley’s poignant commentary on how loneliness, rejection, and lack of compassion can destroy lives, humanity, and sanity.
The unnamed narrator of this intense novella retreats from society and spends his days stewing in bitterness, resentment, and self-imposed isolation. He isolates himself from everyone, with profound self-awareness and relentless introspection.
Dostoevsky creates a compelling portrait of internal loneliness, emotional suffering, and the imprisoning effects of isolation, vividly showing the destructive power of social alienation and how self-consciousness can become its own lonely prison.
Esther Greenwood is an intelligent, ambitious young woman whose struggle with depression plunges her into deep isolation. Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel explores the way mental illness creates profound and painful distance between individuals and the world around them.
Esther’s growing sense of being trapped beneath a suffocating “bell jar” captures what it means to see happiness from a distance without being able to touch it, depicting isolation as both symptom and cause of her emotional anguish.
Stevens is an English butler whose dedication to duty and service leads him to suppress his emotions and personal connections. Looking back on his life, Stevens reflects on missed chances at friendships and romance.
Underneath his polite manners and professionalism, he endures profound loneliness. Ishiguro’s novel masterfully reveals the pain of emotional repression and self-denial, as well as isolation caused by sacrificing intimacy and human warmth for empty perfection.
Kya grows up alone in the marshes of North Carolina, rejected by her community and abandoned by family members one by one. Left to survive on her own, she experiences profound loneliness, comforted only by nature.
Owens powerfully illustrates how isolation shapes Kya’s understanding of life, human relationships, and her sense of self. Amid life’s struggles, she yearns for love and companionship, making the reader deeply empathize with her loneliness and isolation.
Toru reminisces about his university days, especially about two relationships shadowed by isolation and loss.
Navigating friendships, love, and grief, the characters in Murakami’s novel seem perpetually on separate tracks, reaching out for companionship only to face emotional walls.
“Norwegian Wood” reflects on the melancholy of youth, illustrating how intense loneliness can pervade even our most intimate relationships, creating profound emotional distance between people who care deeply.
Set in a small Southern town during the Depression, McCullers’ story revolves around John Singer, a deaf man whom various townspeople confide in, each believing he fully understands them. Singer’s receptive silence actually conceals profound isolation.
Each character experiences loneliness that remains hidden from those around them. This emotional depth clearly illustrates the isolation people face, even surrounded by others, suggesting that loneliness is fundamental to human experience.
Keiko has carefully built her world around the predictable environment of a convenience store. Unable to form meaningful relationships or meet society’s expectations, Keiko’s intense isolation is both literal and emotional.
Her life revolves entirely around her workplace duties, as others pressure her to conform. Murata’s darkly funny and insightful novel portrays the loneliness of individuals who cannot fit into society’s molds, capturing the painful alienation of social conformity.
Ove is curmudgeonly, solitary, and grieving: a man whose strict routines mask intense loneliness. Following the death of his wife, he builds emotional walls around himself. But his carefully isolated world begins to change when new neighbors disrupt his life.
Backman depicts loneliness not just as a quiet sorrow, but also as a condition born of loss and heartbreak, one that can be gently challenged through unexpected human connections.
Astronaut Mark Watney finds himself completely alone and stranded on Mars, millions of miles from Earth. His isolation isn’t just emotional—it’s brutally literal. Watney’s loneliness on Mars is palpable. But so is his determination to connect with humanity again.
Weir crafts a gripping tale built upon isolation, asking how humor, ingenuity, and hope survive when one is utterly alone, struggling against hostile elements in total solitude.
Piranesi lives alone in a vast, mysterious labyrinth filled with statues, flooded chambers, breezes, and waves. His isolation defines him—both physically and psychologically. Though the labyrinth is vast, there is an eerie solitude running throughout the story.
Piranesi meticulously documents details of his environment and periodically meets one other person—but loneliness fills his quiet existence, making readers reflect on how existence itself can feel isolated and uncertain.
Harry Haller lives torn between two identities—the calm intellectual and the beastly loner. Hesse depicts Harry’s intense conflict and self-inflicted isolation.
Unable to fit into society and dissatisfied with himself, he isolates himself through intellectualism, cynicism, and emotional distance.
“Steppenwolf” vividly portrays loneliness as both external and internal, a condition the protagonist cannot escape, and a reflection of the struggle we face trying to reconcile our inner worlds with society around us.