Man alone

The man alone is a literary stock character. Usually an antihero, he is similar to the Byronic hero. The man alone tends to epitomise existentialism, and, in the words of the academic E. H. McCormick is "the solitary, rootless nonconformist, who in a variety of forms crops up persistently in New Zealand writing".[1]

Men alone figure frequently in the literature of newly settled or recently colonised countries such as Australia and especially New Zealand,[2] and the term is likely to have found popularity with the publication of the "Great Kiwi Novel", Man Alone by John Mulgan in 1939 (this novel's title itself originated in a quotation from Ernest Hemingway's To Have and Have Not).[3] The man alone is, by nature, a loner, either by choice or as a result of circumstances beyond his control. This state of separation from society is often literal, in that the man alone will often live physically separate from society as a hermit or working in the wilds of the country. At other times, the state is psychological only; the man alone may live within the presence of others but be emotionally separate or aloof from them.

The sense of physical or psychological separation between the man alone and society often results in the man alone facing interactions with authority which become kafkaesque through mutual misunderstanding.

Examples of the man alone in literature and film
gollark: Esotex!
gollark: =tex thísísánésóláng
gollark: Tèx is an esolang though.
gollark: =tex as as a as as as a dishes be been six I of of she JFK's bend be hen when's a band thrush feud men's men keen make shan end dB's bend men's been amend NCOs oak end FCK snack KDKA papal a jams NDBs M's skald of of plans shah's wish jams jams jamb ng John ban dB hen dB is marks do think fiend end did jamb dB's bend men's men MSNBC baba BBC CNC CB C dB n dB jams jams so spells appeal
gollark: This is true pointlessness.

See also

References
  1. "Men Alone". Otago.ac.nz. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
  2. "The Man Alone, the Black Sheep and the Bad Apple: Squeaky Wheels of New Zealand Cinema". Researchspace.auckland.ac.nz. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
  3. "New Zealand Book Council". Bookcouncil.org.nz. Retrieved 6 June 2015.


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