The three stories that we read during our English class, are somewhat alike, due to the fact that they incorporate one topic that is vividly seen in each of the stories.  This topic is alienation.  In other words, in each story there is a certain hero, or a couple of them, who are in some way insolated from the other people, due to some reason.  Therefore, let us examine those three stories, which are: “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence, “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Alan Poe, and “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka.

The first story that I would like to discuss is the “The Rocking Horse Winner”. In this story, the main hero, Paul, becomes a victim of alienation, as far as he is possession of some ability to predict the winner of the horse racing competitions.  His family is quite poor, however, both the father and the mother adore the posh lifestyle, and spend all their money on this.  Paul wants to help his family somehow, and finds out about his talent.  Consequently, he becomes mad and dies.  Nonetheless, not only the boy is alienated, but the whole family is, as far as they are kind of separated from all the other people in the community because of their way of living.

In “Tell-Tale Heart” the victim of alienation is the narrator himself.  He tells us his story, and we can examine how alienation affects the mental and physical aspects of a person.  In this story a person commits a crime by killing an old man because of the man’s physical disorder – he had an artificial eye.  The murderer becomes locked inside himself and goes mad minute after minute.  His isolation becomes unbearable because he can’t stay with his guilt, therefore, he, eventually, tells what he did to the policemen.

In “The Metamorphosis”, Gregor, the main character of the story, wakes up one day and finds out that he is transformed into an insect with many legs.  What a great example of isolation indeed!  Undoubtedly, he is separated from the society because of his condition, and remains in the state of self-punishment and self-imprisonment, which are the characteristics of alienation.

All these stories show us how alienation affects people’s minds and bodies, and reveal the true nature of isolation.