Have you ever felt trapped when you are in a place you have never been before? Isolation criticizes society because it does not allow everyone to be equal or have the same rights. Isolation can completely change a person, and it's usually for the worse. Society "acts" as if it is trying to prevent isolation, but in reality it isolates people for certain reasons, and then those people are judged as being "different." On closer inspection, it is human nature to deny equal rights because people who don't act, dress, or look the same are labeled strange and, unfortunately, don't are often not accepted by the majority of society. This gives authors a way to highlight the flaws in society. At the beginning of "I Only Came to Use the Phone", Maria prepares to be trapped after a car breaks down and gets on the bus. “Maria looked over her shoulder and saw that the bus was full of women of uncertain ages and varying conditions who were sleeping in blankets like hers.” (72) This should suggest that something is wrong with Maria, but she goes along with it. Maria is the only woman who speaks on the bus, she doesn't act at all like the other women. “She was less sure when she saw several women in uniform who received them at the door of the bus, pulled the blankets over their heads to keep them dry and lined them up in single file, directing them not by speaking but with a rhythm. rhythmic and peremptory. clapping. (73) Maria realizes once again that she is out of place and should get out of here as quickly as possible. In the first line of the poem Exile, “The night we fled the country” (1), this family takes a risk by leaving their country illegally. The family prepares to be trapped if they find themselves in the middle of a paper... isolating them from civilization as they know it, but they no longer feel trapped in a place where they did. They don't want to raise their family to grow up and live in these circumstances. In conclusion, the isolation that occurred in both stories changed the characters for the worse or for the better. However, the way the characters have chosen to handle their situation won't really benefit them in the long run; there are better ways to handle both cases. Our characters will suffer consequences at some point, and being trapped or cut off from civilization won't help. Our characters are capable of making the ultimate decisions for themselves, but they will quickly realize how trapped they are with no way out. “I only came to use the phone.” April 1978: 71-91. Julia Alvarez. "Exile". 2 pages