The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

by Carson McCullers

His hands would jerk nervously, for in his dreams he was talking to his friend and Antonapoulos was watching him.

In the spring a change came over Singer. He could not sleep and his body was very restless.

His agitation gave way gradually to exhaustion and there was a look about him of deep calm. In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone.

Some kind of music was too private to sing in a house cram full of people. It was funny, too, how lonesome a person could be in a crowded house. Mick tried to think of some good private place where she could go and be by herself and study about this music. But though she thought about this a long time she knew in the beginning that there was no good place.

‘Resentment is the most precious flower of poverty. Yeah.’

look to me like us is always arguing even when we sitting perfectly quiet like this. It just this here feeling I haves. I tell you the truth—ever time I come to see you it mighty near wears me out.

The tears went slowly down his cheek and the fire made them take on the colors of blue and green and red.

but everything in the house must be plain and dark and indicative of work and the real true purpose.

He knew, too, that Daisy was teaching the children the cult of meekness. She told them about hell and heaven. Also she convinced them of ghosts and of haunted places.

‘William, I wonder how much of all the things I have said to you when you were a child have stayed in your mind.’

When he read the Spinoza aloud to himself the words had a rich, dark sound.

He never looked at the title of a picture before going into a movie, and no matter what was showing he watched each scene with equal interest.

The mute was always thoughtful and composed. His many-tinted gentle eyes were grave as a sorcerer’s.

lonesomeness he wanted to be close to one of his kids—and they were all so busy that they didn’t know it. He felt like he wasn’t much real use to anybody. She understood this while they were looking at each other.

The idea of the party was over entirely now. This was just a regular playing-out. But it was the wildest night she had ever seen. The kids had caused it. They were like a catching sickness, and their coming to the party made all the other people forget about high school and being almost grown.

MANY TIMES Doctor Copeland talked to Mr. Singer. Truly he was not like other white men. He was a wise man, and he understood the strong, true purpose in a way that other white men could not. He listened, and in his face there was something gentle and Jewish, the knowledge of one who belongs to a race that is oppressed.

‘And how many of us are there in this country? Maybe ten thousand. Maybe twenty thousand. Maybe a lot more. I been to a lot of places but I never met but a few of us. But say a man does know. He sees the world as it is and he looks back thousands of years to see how it all come about. He watches the slow agglutination of capital and power and he sees its pinnacle today. He sees America as a crazy house. He sees how men have to rob their brothers in order to live. He sees children starving and women working sixty hours a week to get to eat. He sees a whole damn army of unemployed and billions of dollars and thousands of miles of land wasted. He sees war coming. He sees how when people suffer just so much they get mean and ugly and something dies in them. But the main thing he sees is that the whole system of the world is built on a lie. And although it’s as plain as the shining sun—the don’t-knows have lived with that lie so long they just can’t see it.’ The red corded vein in Jake’s forehead swelled angrily. He grasped the scuttle on the hearth and rattled an avalanche of coal on the fire. His foot had gone to sleep, and he stamped it so hard that the floor shook. ‘I been all over this place. I walk around. I talk. I try to explain to them. But what good does it do? Lord God!’ He gazed into the fire, and a flush from the ale and heat deepened the color of his face. The sleepy tingling in his foot spread up his leg. He drowsed and saw the colors of the fire, the tints of gr...

But look what the Church has done to Jesus during the last two thousand years. What they have made of Him. How they have turned every word He spoke for their own vile ends. Jesus would be framed and in jail if He was living today. Jesus would be one who really knows. Me and Jesus would sit across the table and I would look at Him and He would look at me and we would both know that the other knew. Me and Jesus and Karl Marx could all sit at a table and— ‘And look what has happened to our freedom.

The fire shadows lapped against the walls. The dark, shadowy waves rose higher and the room took on motion. The room rose and fell and all balance was gone. Alone Jake felt himself sink downward, slowly in wavelike motions downward into a shadowed ocean. In helplessness and terror he strained his eyes, but he could see nothing except the dark and scarlet waves that roared hungrily over him. Then at last he made out the thing which he sought. The mute’s face was faint and very far away. Jake closed his eyes.

The rain was silver on the windowpanes and the sky was wet and cold and gray.

‘When a Jew boy is born they put a gold piece in the bank for him. That’s what Jews do.’ ‘Shucks. You got it mixed up,’ she said. ‘It’s Catholics you’re thinking about. Catholics buy a pistol for a baby soon as it’s born.

‘They got little electric chairs there—just your size. And when they turn on the juice you just fry up like a piece of burnt bacon. Then you go to Hell.’

When anybody’s feelings were hurt it always made him ashamed and nervous. Then how come he could do all the things he had done today?

After he shot Baby the kid was not ever like little Bubber again. He always kept his mouth shut and he didn’t fool around with anybody. Most of the time he just sat in the back yard or in the coal house by himself.

‘One hundred and twenty years ago another man was born in the country that is known as Germany—a country far across the Atlantic Ocean. This man understood as did Jesus. But his thoughts were not concerned with Heaven or the future of the dead. His mission was for the living. For the great masses of human beings who work and suffer and work until they die. For people who take in washing and work as cooks, who pick cotton and work at the hot dye vats of the factories. His mission was for us, and the name of this man was Karl Marx.

The life mission of Karl Marx was to make all human beings equal and to divide the great wealth of the world so that there would be no poor or rich and each person would have his share. This is one of the commandments Karl Marx left to us: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”’

Today we are not put up on the platforms and sold at the courthouse square. But we are forced to sell our strength, our time, our souls during almost every hour that we live. We have been freed from one kind of slavery only to be delivered into another. Is this freedom? Are we yet free men?’ A

We cannot lift up our voices. Our tongues rot in our mouths from lack of use. Our hearts grow empty and lose strength for our purpose.

And by habit they shortened their thoughts so that they would not wander out into the darkness beyond tomorrow.

His gray eyes seemed to take in everything around him, and in his face there was still the look of peace that is seen most often in those who are very wise or very sorrowful. He was always glad to stop with anyone wishing his company. For after all he was only walking and going nowhere.

He watches. The others all have something they hate. And they all have something they love more than eating or sleeping or wine or friendly company. That is why they are always so busy.)

She likes music. I wish I knew what it is she hears. She knows I am deaf but she thinks I know about music.

He was naked and he fumbled with something that he held above his head and gazed at it as though in prayer. He himself knelt halfway down the steps. He was naked and cold and he could not take his eyes from Antonapoulos and the thing he held above him. Behind him on the ground he felt the one with the mustache and the girl and the black man and the last one. They knelt naked and he felt their eyes on him. And behind them there were uncounted crowds of kneeling people in the darkness.

The big Greek’s smile grew very broad and he stuck out his fat, pink tongue. Singer laughed and his hands shaped the words with wild speed.

He was stunned by the memories brought to him with the perfume, not because of their clarity, but because they gathered together the whole long span of years and were complete.

The sense of the past grew in him. Memories built themselves with almost architectural order.

It was as though his head were the prow of a boat and the sounds were water that broke on him and then flowed past. He felt he had to look behind to find the words already said. ‘. . . and their feets swolled up and they lay there and struggle on the floor and holler out. And nobody come. They hollered there for three days and three nights and nobody come.’

But our Willie—he crippled for life now. Both his feet sawed off.’ The words were finished and Portia leaned over and struck her head upon the table. She did not cry or moan, but she struck her head again and again on the hard-scrubbed top of the table. The bowl and spoon rattled and he removed them to the sink. The words were scattered in his mind, but he did not try to assemble them. He scalded the bowl and spoon and washed out the dishtowel. He picked up something from the floor and put it somewhere. ‘Crippled?’ he asked. ‘William?’ Portia knocked her head on the table and the blows had a rhythm like the slow beat of a drum and his heart took up this rhythm also. Quietly the words came alive and fitted to the meaning and he understood. ‘When will they send him home?’

The bleak morning light made the windows gray. Outside it was still raining.

And the sodden heaviness of peace weighted down his limbs so that it was only with the strong, true purpose that he moved. Why did he go onward? Why did he not rest here upon the bottom of utmost humiliation and for a while take his content?

‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies. A bad end comes to a person who pries.’

‘I reveal this only to you,’ he said in a low stage voice. Simms looked down at the scar in his palm. Jake leaned closer and whispered: ‘And there’s the other sign. The sign you know. For I was born with them.’

For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and of valor. Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless time. And of those who labor and of those who—one word—love. His soul expanded. But for a moment only. For in him he felt a warning, a shaft of terror. Between the two worlds he was suspended. He saw that he was looking at his own face in the counter glass before him.

this is the essence of "heart is a lonely hunter" itll take me longer to define what this means, but its felt.

The left eye delved narrowly into the past while the right gazed wide and affrighted into a future of blackness, error, and ruin. And he was suspended between radiance and darkness. Between bitter irony and faith. Sharply he turned away.

What is the significance of the title? Is each character in the novel hunting the same thing, or is each in search of something different?

Each character / heart is lonely and hunting for the same thing, god and/or purpose. Some meaning and hope.

McCullers describes John Singer as “an emotional catalyst for all the other characters.” What does his presence inspire in others?

I think Singer serves as a "therapist" of sorts. a big theme is communication, each character not only can vent to him, but can project their beliefs perfectly onto him and have some sort of hero to worship. I think they realize he was a false idol at the end and they never bothered to listen to him.

“heroic, though ordinary.” How does each character show elements of heroism? Is there a character you find more heroic than the rest?

Porshia is the most heroic to me, she seems to be focused only on others.

In the book’s first section, Biff’s wife, Alice, quotes Mark 1:16–18: “Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.” How does this quote resonate throughout the novel? What role does spirituality play in the novel? Do the characters strive for communion with a higher spiritual force or unifying principle, something greater than themselves?

What does music symbolize in the novel? How, too, is silence used?

music satisfies what the heart is looking for. it evokes feelings that words cant quite suffice for.

what way is each character isolated? What efforts does each make to overcome this alienation?