The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“He was like a man who had served a term in prison or had been to Harvard College or had lived for a long time with foreigners in South America. He was like a person who had been somewhere that other people are not likely to go or had done something that others are not apt to do.”

In this quote, Jake is characterized by his unknowability: There is a mystery about Jake that intrigues other people. He is both crass and intellectual, intelligent and irresponsible. It’s hard to put Jake’s character in a box as so many other characters in this novel are characterized by their society. Jake’s characterization is that of an outsider, which makes him a loner in town. This passage foreshadows revelations of Jake’s past and sets him up to be at odds with the people around him.

“She spread out her arms like wings. This was the place where everybody wanted to stand. The very top. But not many kids could do it. Most of them were scared, for if you lost your grip and rolled off the edge it would kill you.”

In this quote, McCullers characterizes Mick as courageous and ambitious. Mick takes risks that other children will not, thus demonstrating her courage. The symbolism of her wishing to be on top of her town shows her ambition. Through these characterizations, McCullers also shows Mick to be very different from other people in town. With courage and ambition, she has the potential to transform her life and break out of the roles society defines for her.

“But listen! Wherever you look there’s meanness and corruption. This room, this bottle of grape wine, these fruits in the basket, are all products of profit and loss. A fellow can’t live without giving his passive acceptance to meanness.”

Jake’s analysis of the corruption inherent in his capitalistic society is indicative of McCullers’s message about the dangers of industrialization. Every product produced by society is tied to some kind of corruption; therefore, people are forced to be a part of the “meanness” of society. This network of corruption, production, and passive acceptance is how society functions, but Jake’s criticism of it reveals that he would like it to change. This quote also highlights Jake’s intelligence and the ways in which he differs from other people in town.

“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.”

In this quote, McCullers reveals religion as one of the conflicts in Dr. Copeland’s marriage to Daisy. For Dr. Copeland, religion is yet another institution that turns people into sheep: Believing in hell and heaven is as useless as believing in ghosts and haunted places. This marital conflict is a microcosm of society’s larger debate about religion. McCullers’s setting of a small Southern town includes many characterizations of the people as religious, which makes irreligious people like Dr. Copeland at odds with their community.

“The quiet insolence of the white race was one thing he had tried to keep out of his mind for years. When the resentment would come to him he would cogitate and study. In the streets and around white people he would keep the dignity on his face and always be silent. When he was younger it was ‘Boy’—but now it was ‘Uncle’.”

Dr. Copeland’s experience as a Black man in a racist and segregated society is characterized here as weighing on his dignity. Dr. Copeland maintains his dignity through his own sense of self-worth: He is a voracious reader who can believe in his own intellect even if the white society around him refuses to see it. Despite his education, intelligence, and success, white people refer to him as “boy” or “Uncle” to infantilize and dehumanize him, a common practice in the South at that time.

“It seemed to Singer that years had passed since they had been together. There was so much to say that his hands could not shape the signs with speed enough. His green eyes burned and glittered on his forehead. The old feeling of gaiety and bliss was so quick in him again that he could not control himself.”

In this quote, John is characterized through the delight he takes in having friendship and company. Spiros removes Singer’s loneliness, which brings back John’s liveliness that had so long been dormant. Away from Spiros, John is dull and unhappy, but being with his friend makes him so happy that he loses control of his typically quiet self.

“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…Everybody was a wild kid playing out on a Saturday night—and she felt like the very wildest of all.”

Two important moments of character development are highlighted in this quote. Mick sees her friends from the neighborhood as a “sickness,” revealing that she’s ashamed of her socioeconomic status: She wants to impress her new high school friends by pretending to be older and fancier than she truly is. This highlights Mick’s character development because she is no longer childishly free of issues of self-esteem and has internalized prejudice. Their playing in the streets together highlights that none of the teenagers playing at adulthood want to be done with childhood. This is Mick’s final demonstration of wildness, so it marks the end of her childhood and the start of her young adulthood.

“Wonderful music like this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen.”

In this quote, McCullers demonstrates that the things we love in the world are sometimes the things that also bring us pain. Mick is so entranced by music that she experiences love as painful. She is desperate to hear the entire symphony while understanding that there is a limit to how much she can listen to it. This paradox contributes to the inherent loneliness of being human.

“You know it’s like I got to wear blinders all the time so I won’t think sideways or in the past. All I can let myself think about is going to work every day and fixing meals and Baby’s future.”

Lucile’s advice to Biff after his wife’s death is McCullers’s message to her readers: The more people think about their past, the less they live in the moment, and the less they live in the moment, the less they can think about the future. Living in the past is a form of holding yourself back: Biff still has life to live and should not give up on what life has to offer him. This advice can be applied to other characters, like Jake and Dr. Copeland. Living in the past is another way that characters isolate themselves from one another.

“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.”

In this quote, McCullers reveals how Dr. Copeland sees a humanity in John that is missing from other white people. John is himself ostracized by white society due to his deafness. Dr. Copeland instinctually trusts John, which highlights that Dr. Copeland’s mistrust of white society is not absolute. Despite Dr. Copeland’s admiration of John, like Jake, he believes that John has access to secret wisdom because of his deafness. This is its own form of dehumanization because it turns John from a person into a symbol. Dr. Copeland’s assumption that John is Jewish is based on prejudiced understandings of yet another group of marginalized people. Though this allows Dr. Copeland to form a kinship with John, it is not necessarily a kinship rooted in reality.

“School and family and the things that happened every day were in the outside room. Mister Singer was in both rooms. Foreign countries and plans and music were in the inside room. The songs she thought about were there.”

This metaphor of outer and inside rooms is symbolic of how people live two different lives: All people have an internal life that can be different from their externally lived experiences. Mick is learning about this internal versus external conflict for the first time because it is a product of her coming-of-age story. Notably, John is included in her internal and external lives, which highlights the importance of his kindness and understanding to Mick’s character development.

“How much that he had said today was understood? How much would be of any value? He recalled the words he had used, and they seemed to fade and lose their strength. The words left unsaid were heavier on his heart.”

In this quote, Dr. Copeland wonders about the impact of his words on his community. This quote highlights a common question people have, which is whether they are being truly understood by others. The importance of being understood is central to feeling a belonging in a community, and Dr. Copeland can’t feel like he is part of a community that doesn’t understand him. Here, McCullers again highlights the battle between our external and internal lives. Though Dr. Copeland is proud of the words he spoke, there are still unexpressed thoughts that weigh on him. This reveals that the process of becoming part of community is an ongoing process informed by external and internal conflicts.

“The people dreamed and fought and slept as much as ever. And by habit they shortened their thoughts so that they would not wander out into the darkness beyond tomorrow.”

Although McCullers’s novel highlights the stories of specific townspeople, her messages about internal versus external lives are true of all humankind. She extends her analysis of the central characters to the other unknown characters that populate the town. Everybody struggles with their thoughts and tries to keep their internal lives muted and dull so that they can survive through their real-world struggles. This suggests that people require a balance of internal and external fulfillment. This quote highlights the cycle of unhappiness in society because people are defending themselves against their fear of the future.

“And then sometimes when he was alone and his thoughts were with his friend, his hands would begin to shape the words before he knew about it. Then when he realized he was like a man caught talking aloud to himself, it was almost as though he had done some moral wrong. The shame and the sorrow mixed together and he doubled his hands and put them behind him. But they would not let him rest.”

John’s loneliness manifests in his hands. The shame he feels at signing to himself highlights a crisis in John’s emotions; with no one to communicate with, his body betrays him. Though John feels shame about this, it is a natural part of being lonely. The more he tries to suppress his hands, the worse it gets, showing a desperation that others around him don’t see.

“The rich thought he was rich and the poor considered him a poor man like themselves. And as there was no way to disprove these rumors they grew marvelous and very real. Each man described the mute as they wished him to be.”

This quote emphasizes the way in which society projects its beliefs onto someone who is incapable of advocating for himself. By making John into whatever they want him to be, the town unknowingly dehumanizes him. John is his own individual with his own past and feelings, but people don’t care to get to know who he truly is. Because he can’t fight for his autonomy in a traditional way, John is made even lonelier by widespread misunderstandings about him. McCullers never explains why John remains as passive as he is, leaving readers to wonder how John benefits from being seen as a blank slate.

“What did he understand? Nothing. Where was he headed? Nowhere. What did he want? To know. What? A meaning. Why? A riddle.”

Biff’s questions are evocative of existentialist thought. He, like most people, wanders through his thoughts and emotions looking for an answer to a question he doesn’t know how to ask. The paradox of sensing that an answer is desired for a question that is unasked is, in McCullers’s novel, part of the human experience.

“A long time passed before she could get started. The tunes were in her mind but she couldn’t figure how to write them.”

Mick has ideas in her head, but the real work is to find a way to write those ideas down. The artistic and intellectual struggle of this work emphasizes Mick’s intelligence and her intrinsic passion for music, and her lack of ability to write them down emphasizes her poverty and limited background. There is real struggle in being a creative person who does not have the skills to fully express their art, and Mick is learning how to manage her passions with the work itself.

“A song was in him now—although it was not music but only the feeling of a song. 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? But he went onward.”

Here, McCullers emphasizes that spirituality is not only found in institutionalized religion. In Dr. Copeland’s case, the feeling of the song is a subconscious connection to his people’s history of slavery and freedom songs. This connection with the past through a profound spiritual experience in the present gives Dr. Copeland the peace he so desperately seeks. The final words of the quote, in which Dr. Copeland moves forward, highlight his insatiable drive to strive for a better life for himself and for the Black community.

“For a minute there was a bright, golden glow over everything before the sun sank down behind the trees and their shadows were gone on the road before them. She felt very old, and it was like something was heavy inside her. She was a grown person now, whether she wanted to be or not.”

Mick’s coming-of-age story is a series of realizations that she is no longer a child but not yet an adult. Having sexual intercourse with Harry is a formative experience because it demonstrates that she is more mature than she realized. That she keeps this experience to herself marks a new chapter in her inner life. The imagery of the golden glow followed quickly by shadows is symbolic of turning away from the brightness of childhood and into the darker world of adulthood.

“His black eyes glittered with fever. Jake watched him. They waited. In the room there was a feeling tense as conspiracy or as the deadly quiet before an explosion.”

Chapter 13 contains a climactic moment of conflict between Jake and Dr. Copeland. In this quote, McCullers highlights the tension between them, a tension that echoes the conflict between white and Black Americans at that time. The “deadly quiet” does indeed lead to an explosion of argument in which Dr. Copeland and Jake both become disillusioned by the possibility of change in society. McCullers utilizes the word “fever” here both literally and figuratively. Copeland is quite ill, but metaphorically he is fevered by years of oppression and a frustrated dream of equity and inclusion.

“As an armor against oppression I taught patience and faith in the human soul. I know now how wrong I was. I have been a traitor to myself and to my people. All that is rot. Now is the time to act quickly. Fight cunning with cunning and might with might.”

Dr. Copeland’s disillusionment with the power of intellect is a sharp character deviation, one that occurred because of his and his son’s abuse at the hands of white authorities. Dr. Copeland’s change of heart mirrors the shifting rhetoric in the fight for civil rights for Black Americans at the time. This also emphasizes the dangerous cycle of racism; that white racists can abuse peaceful people into embracing a rage and violence that will only fulfill white stereotypes of the Black community.

“Maybe it was a thing that could not be spoken with words or writing. Maybe he would have to let her understand this in a different way.”

Mick’s connection with John is a projection of her own struggles to put her expression on paper. Mick is a musician and wants to speak through music, but she is only starting her journey to learn how to do this. With John, Mick learns that not all communication comes from expected places. This inspires Mick’s passion for music because she learns the valuable lesson that people can be understood in different ways.

“He felt the fire in him and he could not be still. He wanted to sit up and speak in a loud voice—yet when he tried to raise himself he could not find the strength. The words in his heart grew big and they would not be silent.”

Dr. Copeland’s final revelation echoes John’s oppressive silence. When John lost Spiros, he lost a person with whom he could truly communicate. Similarly, here Dr. Copeland feels a swelling of words that he can’t express. Here too there is a physical manifestation of the desire to hear and be heard.