underwent a change so profound it filled me with distress. I looked into the mirror and saw nothing of the white John Griffin's past." (pgs.15-16) The theme of isolation is first discovered in this quote. Griffin feels imprisoned in a body other than his own. He does not like the person he sees before him and feels that the figure he sees in the mirror has no relationship with the mind and soul inside. The next quote describes the separation Griffin feels from his own body. He feels that he is sharing his body with a stranger, someone he feels no connection with. "The completeness of this transformation appalled me. It was unlike anything I had imagined. I became two men, the observing one and the one who panicked, who felt Negroid even to the depths of my entrails. I felt the beginnings of great loneliness, not because I was a Negro but because the man I had been, the self I knew, was hidden in the flesh of another." (pg. 16) Not only does Griffin feel isolated from his black body, but when he returns to his original skin tone, he feels separated from that body and life also. After he had experienced such prejudice and bigotry, he found it hard to return to his original self. "I felt strangely sad to leave the world of the Negro after having shared it so long--almost as though I were fleeing ...
