The Power and the Glory Blog # 1

Loneliness and Depression

One of people's major frights is ending up completely alone with no friends, family or nobody to talk to. This feeling/State leads to depression. In the beggining of the book The Power and the Glory, Mr. Tench expresses his situation and the way he lives. He is completely alone in a country that is not his. "It had been talking to a stranger, Mr. Tench thought, going back into his room, locking the door behind him (one never knew). Loneliness faced hime there, vacancy. But he was as accustomed to both as to his own face in the glass."Pg. 18.
Mr. Tench, lives alone and knows nobody. This character can be compared with Kapuscinski in The soccer War when he narrates that no sickness is worse than being alone. "More devastating than malaria or amoebas, fevers or contagion is the disease of lonliness, the disease of the tropical depression. Defending yourself against it takes iron resistance and strong will. (Here begin a description of depression.)" Pg. 138(The Soccer War).
These two characters live by themselves and in a country different from their own. They are both experiencing political and cultural conflicts where they don't have much to do but they still prefer to stay there, rather to go bck to their countries. Altough the narrations and plots of the book are very different Mr. Tench resembles to the character of Kapuscinski. Loneliness and depression connects both of the characters.