Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Loneliness and Isolation
Communication and Self-Expression
Racism, Inequality, and Injustice
The Individual vs. Society
The American South
Summary
Analysis
As the weeks go by, Biff Brannon continues to watch Singer intently during the three meals a day Singer eats at his café. Brannon has many questions and concerns about the world around him. He is nervous about the rise of Hitler in Europe and the rumors of coming war. He is puzzled by Singer’s abrupt and mysterious comings and goings from town by train. He is also in mourning for his wife, Alice, and has even taken to splashing her perfume on his neck and using her shampoo to comfort himself.
Biff ponders questions and problems both big and small, global and local. Even in the midst of his own personal turmoil, he still has curiosity about and empathy for the problems of others, which sets him apart from many of the novel’s other central characters.
Themes
Even as the café steadily begins losing money, Brannon’s regular patrons continue coming by each day. Blount visits each afternoon to drink. Brannon offers Blount a job at the café, but Blount refuses to work behind a “cash box.” Brannon finds himself puzzled and often frightened by Blount, but can’t resist the urge to try to help him. When he tries to talk to Blount about the man’s life, past, and feelings, however, Blount skirts his questions. The only person Blount ever truly opens up to is John Singer.
This passage suggests that Blount won’t open up to Biff because if he were to do so, he’d actually have someone ask questions and interrogate him back. With Singer, Blount can spew his ideas to someone whose response time is slower and whose patience is greater—he can get away with more with Singer than he could with Brannon.
Themes
One Sunday, Lucile and Baby come to the café for lunch. Baby still has a bandage on her head, and she is not her usual sweet self—she is combative and droll. Biff tries to soothe Baby by bribing her with candy and ice cream. As Lucile watches the two interact, she quips that Biff would make a “good mother.” Baby says she wants to go to the kitchen and visit Willie. Lucile reminds Baby that Willie is in the penitentiary, and that a new young man works in the kitchen now. Baby goes back to the kitchen anyway.
The fact that Lucile tells Biff that he’d make a good mother rather than a good father speaks to the strange kind of love he has for Mick and Baby. He wants to parent them, but there’s something unusual and perhaps impossible about his desire to give love to these young girls.
Themes
Biff serves Lucile and then returns to the register, where he watches his patrons eat. He contemplates the banality of life, so much of which is focused on eating. Soon, Singer and Blount enter. As Biff watches them eat, pay, and leave, he is reminded of Antonapoulos, and grows curious about the nature of the relationship the two men once had before Antonapoulos went away.
This peek into Biff’s innermost thoughts reveals a deep curiosity about the nature of the world around him on both existential and quotidian levels. He wants to know the answers to the big questions about why humans are put on earth and what the purpose of life is—but he is also curious about the small, interpersonal dramas that define those lives.
Themes
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As the afternoon drags on and Biff watches several families come into the café to enjoy their lunches together, he grows lonely and tired. Eventually, he asks a waitress to watch the café so that he can go on a walk. As he heads down the street, he feels a sense of shame—lately, he has been taking walks through Mick’s neighborhood, hoping to run into her. Though he knows what he’s doing is “not quite right,” he can’t stop himself. Biff’s obsession with Mick has intensified lately, and he wishes he could “give to her.” Though he’s done nothing wrong or untoward, he feels a guilt deep within him.
Biff knows that the feelings he has for Mick are inappropriate—though he never names them as explicitly sexual. His desire to “give to her” seems to reflect his reasonable sadness over not having parented a child with Alice, and yet there is also something distinctly shameful and strange about his desire to observe Mick so closely.
Themes
Biff does not run into Mick on his walk, and soon returns to the café to find it empty. As the afternoon turns to evening, business slowly picks up, and the new part-time worker Biff has recently hired—Harry Minowitz—arrives for his shift. As Biff talks to Harry about his life at home and at school, he feels embarrassed for asking so many questions about Harry’s schedule and habits.
Biff’s feelings for Mick and Baby—and his desire to parent them—seem to extend to Harry in this passage. Biff has love and wisdom to give, but doesn’t know how to share those things without feeling awkward.
Themes
Biff leaves Harry at the register and goes downstairs to his office. He sits in his rocking chair and strums a sad song on a little mandolin he keeps down there. He dreams of adopting a boy and a girl—sweet, round-cheeked children who will look like Mick and Baby. Biff begins looking back on unpleasant and embarrassing moments throughout his marriage to Alice, and soon starts contemplating death. At the depth of his sorrow, Biff hears the voices of his customers laughing and talking upstairs. Renewed and uplifted by the idea that later on, Mick might come by for a drink or a sundae, Biff heads upstairs—the hours pass by, and Mick does not come.
Biff longs for human connection very intensely—but the kind of connection he wants is vaguely bizarre and inappropriate. He is a man with a lot of love to give, but instead of dreaming of finding a new wife or partner, he dreams of giving his love to a child. Biff’s feelings for Mick and Baby verge on the inappropriate—but there does seem to be a core of sweetness and earnestness in Biff’s desire to parent a child. His appreciation of music also hints at his genuine wish to connect with others, if only he could figure out how.
Themes
