Great Debut Novels: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Unbelievably, Carson McCullers was only twenty-three when her debut novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, was published. The novel follows the lives of several people living in a small town in the deep south of America: John Singer, a deaf-mute who communicates by writing messages on cards and lipreading; Mick Kelly, a restless teenager with dreams of becoming a famous musician; Jake Blount, an out-of-towner with a penchant for alcohol and a burning desire to start a socialist uprising; Benedict Mady Copeland, a highly-educated black doctor who strives for racial equality; and Bartholomew ‘Biff’ Brannon, the quiet and watchful owner of the New York Café.
What these characters all have in common is that they are desperately lonely, and John Singer, whose past is a mystery to everyone, becomes a confidant for the other four disillusioned people. Each one views him as completely different from anyone they have ever met; his deafness and dumbness give him an aura of wisdom and tranquillity that is severely lacking in their lives and which draws them to him as though he were a godlike figure.
Each chapter is narrated in the third person and focuses primarily on one of the five characters. John Singer is the true protagonist because each separate storyline involves him in some way. Moreover, the very first chapter describes the years he spent prior to meeting the aforementioned people.
After living for many years with another deaf-mute, an enormous Greek man called Spiros Antonapoulos, Singer was left all alone when his friend was taken to a mental asylum on account of his increasingly unstable behaviour. He then moved across town into the boarding house run by Mick Kelly’s parents, and every day the mute eats at Biff Brannon’s café, where he first comes across Jake Blount.
Each person’s story is captivating and their struggles are still highly relevant and relatable in the present day. While Mick’s restlessness and desire to be understood perfectly encapsulate the struggles of growing up, they are also feelings shared by the older main characters as they struggle with issues like social and racial inequality.
For many years Dr. Copeland has been consumed with a burning resentment at the way black people have been treated in society, but his teachings, which we get a glimpse of, have still left him frustrated. People appear to understand his speeches, yet they do not share his urgency to take action.
Meanwhile, Jake’s frustrations lie with the unjust treatment of the working-classes, and he too yearns for radical change; however, any attempts he makes to share his ideas with others are often laughed at, leaving him angry and more inclined to drink heavily. Jake and Dr. Copeland, along with Biff and Mick, visit John Singer as nobody else understands them, or at least wants to, and they see him as being tolerant and non-judgemental.
‘At first he had not understood the four people at all. They talked and they talked — and as the months went on they talked more and more. He became so used to their lips that he understood each word they said. And then after a while he knew what each one of them would say before he began, because the meaning was always the same.’
Carson McCullers
One of the sad things about the novel is that the people who come to see Singer do not know that he is just as lonesome as they are. They think that he possesses qualities rare to man — a compassion and understanding of the human struggle — yet we know that, even though he is undoubtedly compassionate, Singer is not special and is just as susceptible to loneliness, sadness and frustration as the others. Furthermore, although they think they’ve found someone who finally understands them, their conversations are one-sided not just because he cannot verbally respond, but also for the simple reason that he does not know how to help them beyond giving a few polite nods or writing a pacifying response on one of his cards.
However, does this really matter if they feel better for having visited him? John Singer provides each person with hope: Mick’s teenage angst and frustrations are soothed in his presence; Jake’s conviction that Singer, along with himself, is one of the few people ‘who knows’ slightly alleviates his despairing lonesomeness; and Doctor Copeland views him as a rare figure of goodness and understanding among the morally corrupt white race. Biff Brannon is the only one that takes a step back to try and figure out just why Singer has such an effect on these people, and in many respects his job at the café allows him to play the role of the reader since he is constantly able to observe the others.
This is a tremendous novel with characters I won’t forget in a hurry. Loneliness — that undeniable and unavoidable fact of existence — is so accurately and heartbreakingly portrayed that I couldn’t help but feel extremely attached to John, Mick, Jake, Dr. Copeland, and Biff. McCullers gives a fascinating insight into what small-town life was like in the south during the late thirties, yet her characters do not just belong to this period. Their struggles unfortunately remain today’s universal struggles.
The book shares many similarities with To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), which was published twenty years later and was of course also written by a woman. Both are set in small southern towns in the thirties, and both are greatly concerned with racial and social inequality. One way in which they clearly differ is through the loneliness that afflicts each of McCullers’s principal characters, which often makes her book an upsetting read. Nevertheless, their condition is also strangely comforting and uplifting, for it paradoxically reminds us that to be lonesome is to be universally united by an inescapable and profound aspect of human nature.
My Rating: 5/5
