Carson McCullers, in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, addresses several themes throughout the story: loneliness, the desire for self-expression, politics, and religion. Her themes are woven seamlessly in the story through the characters, their conflicts and dreams, and the plot. Each of the main characters carries McCullers’ themes through the novel in their own unique and interesting ways.
Mr. Singer struggles with extreme isolation and loneliness, imposed in-part by his deafness and by the removal of his friend, Antonopoulos. All of the other main characters depend on Mr. Singer to give them a sense of connection, but despite their frequent visits and constant talking to him, he remains removed from them, unable to ever fully understand what they are saying to him. “They come up to my room and talk to me until I do not understand how a person can open and hut his or her mouth so much without being weary.” (p. 215), Singer writes in a letter to his friend. Ironically, the one true connection Singer feels, to Antonopoulos, is as much an illusion as the connections the others feel toward him. Singer comes to admit that Antonopoulos most likely does not understand anything he tells him: “The fact that Antonoploulos could not read did not prevent Singer from writing to him. He had always known that his friend was unable to make out the meaning of words on paper.” (p. 212).
Young Mick Kelly is searching for her place in life, feeling disconnected and out-cast from her family. Mick struggles to express herself and communicate through the songs that compose themselves in her mind. Her search for her music becomes her religion, her politics, and her dreams. Mick tries to express herself and share herself with her family, but always falls short and is left isolated. She divides her life into the “inside room” and the “outside room,” keeping her music, dreams, and admiration for Mr. Singer private and secure in her “inside room,” away from everyone else. But in the end, the pressure to help her family over takes her dreams, she takes a job at Woolworths, and ends up leaving her “inside room” behind, even if only temporarily.
Jake Blount is a drunk and a drifter, isolated because he is a stranger to the town, but also because of his erratic behavior and violent rants about socialism. Blount feels that he has connected with Singer, believing that Singer also “knows” and is a co-conspirator in his plans for a Socialist revolt. Blount also attempts to connect with Dr. Copeland, spending an entire evening talking ideals and philosophies and plans with Copeland, but in the end their differences cause the men to argue and blow up at each other, neither being able to see the similarities in their canons because of the extremes in their approaches. After Singer kills himself, Blount feels further persecuted, by the raging crowd at the carnival and by his own distrust for those around him, and he leaves the town.
Biff Brennan is like Singer in many ways. Although he isn’t a deaf mute, he is often a silent observer of the cast of characters that come into his café. Brennan is alone, even before his wife dies, as they are estranged and living completely opposite schedules to keep the café running: “… Biff made up the bed. Deftly he reversed the sheets in all possible ways, putting the top one on the bottom, and turning them over and upside down.” (p. 32). McCullers cleverly uses the bed to show the reader that Brennan’s and his wife’s lives are at odds in every way. Like Blount and Dr. Copeland, Brennan is aware of and concerned with society and the world around them. However, instead of preaching and spouting ideals and attempting to spread the word, Brennan hoards the news, filing newspapers carefully in a back room.
Dr. Copeland has a strong sense of obligation to his people, so much so that he has isolated himself from his family in his quest to find justice and equality for the black community. But he is also alienated from other black people in the community, because of his education and ideals. Like Blount, Dr. Copeland is a Marxist; however, instead of calling for a socialist revolt, Copeland longs to improve the plight of the black community through education. He remains disconnected from his family throughout the story, frustrated with their ready acceptance of society’s constraints and injustices forced on them. In the end, however, Copeland is pulled reluctantly back into the fold of the family, making him the only main character that is not alone at the end of the story.
There are times throughout the book, when McCullers may have gotten carried away with the political and social message. The ideals of social reform, the injustice of the racial divide, and the teachings of Karl Marx are repeated frequently throughout the novel, to the point where it becomes distracting in a few places and begins to sound more like the author speaking than the characters.
Carson McCullers unifies her central themes in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter through the character and plot development, making them consistent and compelling. As I read this book I couldn’t help but think of some of the themes and symbols that appear in fits-and-starts in my novel, and the importance of identifying them and making them consistent threads from beginning to end.
(Page numbers based on the Mariner Books, 2000, paperback edition.)
