Classics Corner: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers; McCullers's Insightful Classic on Loneliness and Isolation in 1930's Georgia
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book by an author in their twenties (23)
Spoilers: By far the most interesting and enigmatic character in Carson McCullers' debut novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is John Singer.
Singer is a deaf-mute transient who arrives in an isolated unnamed small town in 1930's Georgia. He rents a room at the Kelly Family's boarding house and hangs out, like nearly everyone else in town does, at Biff Brannon's cafe. No one knows where he comes from or anything about his past and he arouses everybody's curiosity.
Singer seems to the other characters to be a man without a story. However, we the Readers learn his story. Out of the characters who feel lonely, he is the loneliest because he lost his only source of human contact.
McCullers wrote, "In the town there were always two deaf-mutes, and they were always together."
Spiro Antonapoulos was Singer's best friend, only family, life partner and, while the book never outright states but hints at this, potential soulmate. The two communicated with sign language and understood each other's conversation, thoughts, and emotions. Antonapoulos and Singer were able to communicate on each other's level. They didn't see each other as far off or remote. They saw each other as equals, friends, and family. Unfortunately, Antonapoulos was institutionalized by his cousin, with Singer having no official say in what happened to his friend.
While Singer appears mysterious to others, Singer now only lives a half-life. "Nothing seemed real except the ten years with Antonapoulos," McCullers wrote "In his half-dream he saw his friend very vividly, and when he awakened a great loneliness would be great in him...and so in the months passed in this empty, dreaming way."
While others begin to confide in Singer, his thoughts are elsewhere. His usual thoughts are with his friend, in that hospital, and wishing that Antonapoulos could be out with him or that he could join him.
Now that Singer is alone and in a new town, he arouses other's curiosity. Some are intimidated by his silence.
However, some are not curious about him or intimidated by his silence, but find a sympathetic soul to confide in, one who won't interrupt or judge them. Singer is someone who listens to their problems, or at least sits in silence while others talk about them.
For four people in town, Singer acts for them as an oracle or a priest in confession. They talk to him because they are lonely, feel isolated, and have no one else to confide in. Their one-sided conversations are their ways of searching for answers in a dark world that seems to be without them and thrives off the characters's loneliness, isolation, and despair.
One of those characters is the second most interesting character in the book and probably a stand-in for the young McCullers herself. Mick Kelly, is the daughter of the family who owns the boarding house in which Singer is staying. She feels isolated because of her gender and socioeconomic status.
Mick is an androgynous tomboy who is tough, active, and creative. She fights to defend herself and her effeminate younger brother. She also fights for time for herself. She is a budding musician and composer who vents out her frustrations into her music. She longs for the day when she can leave town and her limited role as a young adolescent poor white trash girl in a male dominated society. She wants to become a famous musician and achieve art and beauty through her music.
Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland is another interesting character who confides in Singer. He is isolated from the society around him because of his race.He is a black man in the South. Like Ralph Ellison's Narrator, he too is an invisible Man to white society.
In the segregated black community, Copeland is an esteemed doctor and philosopher. He once was an activist, so much so that he named his son Karl Marx Copeland.
Now, Copeland is embittered and just tries to be accomodating despite the racist societal standards that view him and his friends and family as less than human. He tries to maintain his humanity and dignity despite adversity. However, when members of his family are attacked, Copeland's inner rage and desire for action emerge. He plans to organize a thousand African-American people to march on Washington.
Jake Blount is similar to Copeland, because he too is a former activist who is now bitter. He was once a Socialist and union member who has fallen on hard times. He is isolated because of his illness and habits.
Jake is an alcoholic who has seen much suffering and despair and it has consumed him. Now he just drunkenly rants and raves about his philosophies. He has lost the desire for action and now is a source of mockery.
Biff Brannon would seem to be the most visible member of this group. He represents the middle class white men who are important figures in town. His cafe is where the townspeople congregate and normally he would be the one who everyone would talk to. However, it becomes clear that this ideal model of society has his own problems.
Biff has all the trappings of what his middle class society should have: a home, a standing in the community, wife, children. He should be satisfied, but he isn't. He alienates his wife and family and appears to have no real contact with the people around him. He is isolated because of his inner misery.
To Mick, Dr. Copeland, Jake, and Biff, Singer almost represents a god-like figure, one that they could pray to but never gain full access to. Of course, we know that Singer is just a lost lonely individual. Even though they talk to him, they don't understand his problems or emotions. They only see in Singer what they want to see, someone who must be on a higher plane of existence than they are and has the answers in which they seek.
Singer tolerates their presence, though sometimes finds them rude. Perhaps, in absence of his only friend he is desperate for anyone to provide warmth and human contact for him. They long for that as well. They only want someone to understand them. Instead of telling their troubles to family members or each other, they tell Singer. This fact reveals how alone the characters feel that they acquiesce to this one-sided conversation rather than reaching out to other people around them, people who mistrust them since they all exist on the outer fringes of society. It's an almost symbiotic existence as Singer and the other four characters serve each other's needs, but don't exist on a personal or emotional level.
This symbiotic relationship with Singer and the four others comes crashing down. When Singer goes to the hospital to visit Antonapoulos, he is stunned to learn that his friend died. Singer is driven to despair after losing the man with whom he shared a life. Singer return to the Kelly home and shoots himself. He does not want to live a life of loneliness with him being privy to other people's thoughts and troubles and no one privy to his.
Singer's death exacerbates the lonely existance of the other characters, leaving their dreams unmet and their lives even more isolated than before. Rather than have his planned March on Washington, Dr. Copeland is sent to a home for people with tuberculosis, cut off from the black community that he tried so valiantly to uphold. Jake works at a carnival, now living as a figure of amusement and no longer someone who has the ability to change the world. Biff is stuck in his middle class lifestyle, emotionally cut off from those around him. Mick surrenders to the life of a typical female of her society. Gone are the boyish clothes, tough attitude, and music. Instead she wears feminine clothes, behaves in a passive obedient manner, and works at Woolworths. They have lost the ability to fight and now just live.
While the book ends in despair, there are possibilities that things will not remain badly for the four characters, particularly Dr. Copeland and Mick. Ways in which McCullers never dreamt when the book was published in 1940. As mentioned in my review for A People's History of the United States, black people rebelled in many ways in the 1920's-'40's, rebellions that would later continue on a wider scale during the Civil Rights Movement. (It's hard not to read about Dr. Copeland's aborted March on Washington without thinking of Martin Luther King Jr.'s real life later March.) The seeds that Copeland sows in his activism would later grow in history. Perhaps, subsequent generations take up Copeland's mantle and follow his dream to its inevitable conclusion.
Another possibility is raised in the dichotomy between an author and her character. As mentioned before, Mick is a stand in for Carson McCullers herself. Like Mick she wore boyish clothes and had a tremendous talent in which she put to good use. In fact The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was published when she was 23.
Perhaps, Mick would be another McCullers, able to use her talent for music to describe the sufferings around her and become as recognizable as her creator.
Jake and Biff may also see their dreams and lives changed in meaningful ways as well. Perhaps Biff will realize how important his family means to him. Maybe, Jake will find his causes have new meaning with others.
Their dreams may not be gone forever, just postponed until they are ready for them. The four characters may yet find some meaning and purpose in their lives and break from these cycles of !oneliness and isolation.
