Isolation and Space in Dahmer

 As I read My Friend Dahmer this summer, I found myself really noticing the theme of isolation in the book (perhaps because I was also focused on that in The Lovely Bones - if you want to know more - see my posting about the penguin in the snowglobe). Not only was Jeff Dahmer alone on a regular basis, but even when he was with others, he found ways to separate himself through his behavior, his drinking, his choice to go to the shed behind his house. He is portrayed as a 'loner' in Backderf's book through the visual representations as well: in the "Prologue," Jeff is shown as a tiny image on the bottom right of page 13; the road, which is stretched out before him, rolls and shows a combination of dark and light spaces. But Jeff is located proximal to the darkest part of the road, which moves from the dark forest (often used in literature as a representation of the base part of human nature - the wildness of human beings) to the brighter city (which is connected - notice the telephone poles and wires).

Here is a discussion of the concept of isolation from Peter Gutiérrez. (Peter is a spokesperson on comics and graphic novels for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and is a frequent contributor to School Library Journal.) This excerpt is taken from the Teacher's Guide, page 2):

In an online review of My Friend Dahmer for Time, Lev Grossman writes about the feeling of isolation that Dahmer felt. In the late 1970s,
“there was no Internet and no cell phones. Back then you could actually be alone, truly, deeply alone and isolated in a way that’s almost
impossible now. There was no Twitter, no Facebook, no global network of electronic confi dences and confessions open 24/7. Whatever was
going wrong in your house, and in your head, you dealt with it, or not, by yourself in your room.”