Isolation In Rocket Night

“Rocket Night” by Alexander Weinstein gives a clear insight into the modern world and shows that social isolation can take shape in many forms. “Rocket Night” demonstrates that even with young audiences, a significant amount of social outcasting takes place in social media today. For example, “Rocket Night” illustrates a clear bias against those from different economic statuses. Furthermore, it displays clear discrimination against those of other ethnicities. And finally, it demonstrates that groups will try to become uniform in appearance and push away everyone that appears different than what is considered “normal”. These tropes are comparable to the age of social media in which we live.
“Rocket Night demonstrates a clear in-group bias regarding

There’s a hand-me-down quality to the clothing of those selected" (Weinstein 700). This demonstrates that in the process of choosing the child, it is not the actions of the child that gets them launched into space but the circumstances in which they live. In this scenario, the child is from a poor background and cannot afford new clothing, which leads the other kids to view him differently and in a less favorable light. Again, this is representative of social media in the modern world as it is unlikely to see someone from a less fortunate background in the “spotlight”, but instead, be considered as irrelevant and even worthless. Furthermore, it is common in the age of social media to see an individual be bullied for being from a less fortunate background. Even though it is completely out of the individual’s control, which can lead to isolation, similar to that of the chosen child in the emptiness of space. Another example from the text is regarding the parents of the child launched into space, and it states: “Seeing them standing there with their child, we realized, with relief, that with the departure of their son, we would also gain their departure” (Weinstein 701). This demonstrates that

This idea is shown in the opening paragraph which states “The previous year we’d sent off a boy from India whose name none of us could remember” (Weinstein 700). This demonstrates that there is an apparent racial motive to the selection process of an individual. That even though this boy may have been a kind, intelligent student, just because he was of a different race, he was launched into space, where he will forever live in isolation. This is representative of the modern age of social media as there are widespread racial ideologies that get spread all throughout the internet as a result. This leads to isolation as the individual can no longer connect with others because they have been outcast for simply looking different than those around them. Furthermore, it can often be difficult for an individual who was isolated due to their race to find a community in which they are accepted, as they could be discouraged and become reluctant to look elsewhere on social