Basic Trope: A character goes mad after spending time in isolation for too long.
- Straight: Bob loses his sanity after spending time at home by his lonesome for months.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob instantly goes insane only after a full day of complete alone time.
- Bob instantly goes insane after a full nanosecond of complete alone time.
- Bob goes insane after months of being surrounded by less than 25 people.
- After several months, Bob becomes an Omnicidal Maniac.
- Bob instantly goes insane only after a full day of complete alone time.
- Downplayed: Bob can bear with being alone for an extended period of time, but nevertheless makes the effort to interact with others once in a while.
- Justified:
- Bob can't stand the thought of being by his lonesome for long periods of time.
- Humans are inherently social animals, and being deprived of social interaction for prolonged periods of time have severe negative effects on both our mental and physical health.
- Inverted:
- Bob goes mad from being surrounded by company for too long.
- Bob embraces isolation as a form of enlightenment.
- Bob's time away from society has notably improved his mental health.
- Subverted:
- Bob has spent alone time at home for months but keeps his sanity in check by preoccupying himself with other activities.
- Alice is Bob's first human contact after a long time without activities or people. She thinks he's gone crazy, but he was just teasing her.
- At first Alice thought Bob had gone mad from isolation but then she finds his Room Full of Crazy from before isolation and detailing his worldview. Turns out it was the other way around.
- Double Subverted:
- He's only putting up a façade of mental competence.
- But, as soon as she leaves, he starts Becoming the Mask.
- Parodied: Bob was perfectly sane while talking to Alice, but he becomes a nervous wreck the instant she turns away from him.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Bob's sanity wanes and waxes in his alone time.
- The overwhelming majority go mad from extended isolation. A very small few gain Enlightenment Superpowers but tend to become so alien in thinking that many suspect it is Power Born of Madness. The main evidence against this theory is that their assessments prove correct even if they sound ridiculous, or something long discredited, or morally questionable to objectionable.
- Averted: Bob doesn't go insane from spending time alone for extended periods of time.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: "I've lost it! I can't take this total separation any more!"
- Invoked: Bob is sentenced to solitary confinement, and from there, his sanity deteriorates as time progresses.
- Exploited: In Bob's absence, Mike takes over his life.
- Defied: Bob goes to public places every day so he'll be surrounded by company and not feel alone.
- Discussed: "I don't want to be alone for too long. I could go mad."
- Conversed: "Boy, isolation did a bigger number on Bob than it did on Alice."
- Implied: Bob is rather more prone to blank, thousand-yard stares after his period of absence than before.
- Deconstructed: Everybody else thinks (erroneously) that Bob is The Hermit and wants to be alone, so they forget he ever existed.
- Reconstructed: ...all except his old Love Interest Cathy, who sustains him psychologically with periodic visits.
- Played for Laughs: Bob tells himself progressively stranger jokes to try to ward off insanity, ultimately coming to laugh at his own jokes and making himself Laughing Mad.
- Played for Drama: Bob is Driven to Suicide in his insanity.
- Plotted a Good Waste: The whole point of the story is to show what a toll complete isolation would take on somebody like Bob, and how that's terrible.
Please.. . come back to Go Mad from the Isolation. It's lonely here.
