Jake Blount Character Analysis in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Jake Blount is an itinerant wanderer who, at the start of the novel, has just arrived in the unnamed mill town in which the book is set. A drunkard, a socialist, and a man deeply disturbed by the inequalities and injustices he perceives all around him, Jake Blount travels from town to town trying to get people to see the “truth”—but he is never able to articulate concisely what truth he wants to share, and is never able to galvanize or radicalize the people he meets. Jake Blount believes that capitalism is the great evil of America and the root of all racism and injustice. Like Doctor Benedict Mady Copeland, Blount wants to inspire people to rise up, take action, and change their fates—but like Copeland, his fatal flaw is that he fails to do so at every turn, often because of his own actions or circumstances. Even though Blount’s intentions are good, he is a deeply self-absorbed person. As he befriends John Singer, he often spends his time ranting at the deaf man, drinking Singer’s alcohol and eating Singer’s food, and falling asleep in an intoxicated heap on Singer’s floor. Singer empathizes with Blount’s frustrations with society, but seems to know Blount will never be able to get sober long enough to organize anyone—or put aside his own beliefs to make room for those of others. Indeed, when Blount, incensed by rumors of the injustice and cruelty Willie has faced while imprisoned at the state penitentiary, goes to Copeland’s house to visit Willie and the doctor, he finds himself embroiled in a late-night debate with the ailing Copeland. Both men long to change the world—but Blount is so preoccupied with the idea of capitalism, not racism, as America’s greatest evil that he declines to support Copeland’s vision of marching over a thousand black people all the way to Washington. Blount’s inability to work with others—and his own internalized racism, in spite of his protestations to the contrary—condemn him to a life of wandering and solitude.

Jake Blount Quotes in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The The Heart is a Lonely Hunter quotes below are all either spoken by Jake Blount or refer to Jake Blount. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

In some men it is in them to give up everything personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons—throw it to some human being or some human idea. They have to.

Related Characters: Bartholomew “Biff” Brannon, Jake Blount

Page Number and Citation: 32-33

Explanation and Analysis:

It was good to talk. The sound of his voice gave him pleasure. The tones seemed to echo and hang on the air so that each word sounded twice. He swallowed and moistened his mouth to speak again. He wanted suddenly to return to the mute’s quiet room and tell him of the thoughts that were in his mind. It was a queer thing to want to talk with a deaf-mute. But he was lonesome.

Related Characters: Jake Blount, John Singer

Related Symbols: Music

Page Number and Citation: 64

Explanation and Analysis:

Singer was always the same to everyone. He sat in a straight chair by the window with his hands stuffed tight into his pockets, and nodded or smiled to show his guests that he understood.

Related Characters: John Singer, Mick Kelly, Bartholomew “Biff” Brannon, Jake Blount, Doctor Benedict Mady Copeland

Page Number and Citation: 92

Explanation and Analysis:

“I go around,” Blount said. He leaned earnestly across the table and kept his eyes on the mute’s face. “I go all around and try to tell them. And they laugh. I can’t make them understand anything. No matter what I say I can’t seem to make them see the truth.”

Singer nodded… […] His dinner had got cold because he couldn’t look down to eat, but he was so polite that he let Blount go on talking.

Related Characters: Jake Blount (speaker), John Singer, Bartholomew “Biff” Brannon

Page Number and Citation: 131

Explanation and Analysis:

“This the way it is,” Willie said. “I feel like my feets is still hurting. I got this here terrible misery down in my toes. Yet the hurt in my feets is down where my feets should be if they were on my l-l-legs. And not where my feets is now. It a hard thing to understand. My feets hurt me so bad all the time and I don’t know where they is. They never given them back to me. They s-somewhere more than a hundred m-miles from here.”

Related Characters: William “Willie” Copeland (speaker), Jake Blount, John Singer

Page Number and Citation: 289

Explanation and Analysis:

“But if you was to ask me to point out the most uncivilized are on the face of this globe I would point here—” […] Jake turned the globe again and pressed his blunt, grimy thumb on a carefully selected spot. “Here. These thirteen states. I know what I’m talking about. I read books and I go around. I been in every damn one of these thirteen states. […] And here in these thirteen states the exploitation of human beings is so that—that it’s a thing you got to take in with your own eyes.”

Related Characters: Jake Blount (speaker), Doctor Benedict Mady Copeland

Page Number and Citation: 296-297

Explanation and Analysis:

The road ahead lay to the north and slightly to the west. But he would not go too far away. He would not leave the South. That was one clear thing.

Related Characters: Jake Blount

Page Number and Citation: 350

Explanation and Analysis:

Jake Blount Character Timeline in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The timeline below shows where the character Jake Blount appears in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Communication and Self-Expression Theme Icon

...share above the café to retrieve a suitcase belonging to the drunk, whose name is Jake Blount. Alice wakes up and warns Biff that if he doesn’t tell Blount—who naps in... (full context)

Alice calls Blount “a bum and a freak,” but Biff retorts that he likes freaks. Privately, he thinks... (full context)

Back downstairs, Biff notes that Singer is drinking a cup of coffee alone while Blount, sitting alone in the corner, talks nonsense aloud to no one in particular—he is talking... (full context)

...she gets out money to pay, she drops her change. Some of it rolls near Jake Blount’s table. Blount picks up the coins and laments the high price of cigarettes, blaming... (full context)

Biff turns his attention to the drunk and stinking Blount. He urges Blount to go back to the kitchen and ask the boy working back... (full context)

Racism, Inequality, and Injustice Theme Icon

At two in the morning, Jake Blount returns in the company of a black doctor whom Biff knows is related to... (full context)

Nearly an hour goes by as Biff observes Blount pontificating to Singer about the ills of the world. At last, Singer nods at the... (full context)

A group of policemen enter the café supporting the bloody and drunk Jake Blount—Singer is with them. They ask Biff if Blount is staying with him, or if... (full context)

When Blount is done eating, Biff walks him and Singer to the door and bids them goodnight.... (full context)

Jake Blount wakes up in the middle of the afternoon confused by his strange surroundings—but comforted... (full context)

Singer produces a tin of snacks—crackers, cheese, and oranges—and shares it with Jake. As the two men sip coffee, Jake asks Singer if he’s the only deaf man... (full context)

Jake heads downstairs, asking a tomboyish girl sitting on the stairs if she knows where he... (full context)

Jake picks up a paper from the fruit and candy store on Main Street and looks... (full context)

Jake walks through the streets of town, passing through poor mill districts on his way to... (full context)

Jake wanders through the streets of town talking to himself. He feels lonesome, and longs for... (full context)

Jake returns to the boarding house to find Singer sitting at his chessboard. Jake sits down... (full context)

Singer, who has been eyeing Jake with “patient interest,” takes out his pad and pen and writes a note. He passes... (full context)

...room, where he waits for his guests to arrive. Mick, Doctor Copeland, Biff Brannon, and Jake Blount come to his room separately to air their problems. (full context)

...and, charmed and surprised by this fact, Copeland comes back to visit again and again. Jake Blount comes to visit each week, a sack of beer in tow. He talks loudly... (full context)

Upon returning to the boarding house, Singer finds that Mick, Doctor Copeland, Jake, and Biff are full of questions about where he’s been and why. Singer, however, pretends... (full context)

...Biff opens the New York Café for business. His regulars are all there, including Singer, Jake Blount, and Mick. Everything at the café seems the same as it’s always been. Blount... (full context)

Biff watches as Mick timidly joins Blount and Singer at their table. He thinks it is an odd sight—a gangly 13-year-old tomboy... (full context)

Upstairs, in Singer’s room, Jake Blount asks who the black man on the stairs was. Singer doesn’t answer him, and... (full context)

Singer prepares some snacks for himself and Blount as Blount continues talking about the problems facing America—a place where people must rob their... (full context)

Blount is no longer a stranger in town. He has worked at the Sunny Dixie all... (full context)

Blount wakes up on the floor of Singer’s room, realizing he’s fallen asleep. As soon as... (full context)

Singer looks at the clock and signals to Blount—it is time for lunch. Blount follows Singer down the stairs, loudly talking to the back... (full context)

In the morning, Blount wakes up late. Singer is gone, but has left some breakfast on the table. Jake... (full context)

...coming to his room to talk to him for more than seven months—Doctor Copeland, Mick, Jake Blount, and Biff Brannon. Of the four of them, the quiet Biff is the only... (full context)

...guests at once, but the atmosphere in the room is awkward and uncomfortable. Copeland, Mick, Blount, and Brannon are stony and silent—an oddity, considering how on their own they each have... (full context)

...of the night. In his dreams, he has disturbing visions of Antonapoulos, Mick, Doctor Copeland, Blount, and Brannon naked and kneeling all around him. (full context)

...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... (full context)

...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... (full context)

...hot again as March has gone on, and the Sunny Dixie Show is always busy. Jake Blount hates the warm weather and is not looking forward to a long and stifling... (full context)

Jake has, at long last, met the man who chalked a Bible verse on the wall... (full context)

...Dixie, too, begin to escalate, and quarrels frequently break out between white and black customers. Jake even gets into a brawl with two of the other carnival operators after he overhears... (full context)

Throughout April, more and more disturbing and threatening happenings unfold. Jake finds the dead body of a young black man near the Sunny Dixie showgrounds, and... (full context)

One afternoon, Jake goes up to Singer’s room to visit him, but finds that the room is empty.... (full context)

That night, Jake and Singer go together to Doctor Copeland’s house. Portia greets them at the door and... (full context)

Portia introduces Willie to Jake, insisting to her brother that Jake is a friend of Singer who can be trusted.... (full context)

Jake asks Willie to give him the names and addresses of the other young men with... (full context)

Jake, overwhelmed with the trauma and injustice before him, becomes dazed. He wishes he could leave,... (full context)

After Portia leaves the room, Marshall turns to Jake and tells him that he believes the best course of action is to lay low,... (full context)

Marshall brings the conversation back to what he had begun to explain to Jake a moment ago. He tells Jake that it is important for the “members of the... (full context)

Doctor Copeland, seeing Jake standing in the door, orders him to get out of his house. Jake asks why... (full context)

...several hours, the two men have “a long, exhausting dialogue.” When it is past midnight, Jake suggests they have one final word about the “strangled” and “wasted South.” Jake takes a... (full context)

Copeland tries to tell Jake he’s “getting off on a tangent” and “giving no attention” to the problems black people... (full context)

As dawn begins to break, Doctor Copeland tells Jake that he hopes they have not spent all night up talking “to no purpose.” They... (full context)

Jake doesn’t believe that Copeland’s ideas about actions and demonstrations will be effective. Copeland says he... (full context)

After thinking, Jake declares that Doctor Copeland’s plan is not the right approach—he predicts a group of a... (full context)

...up in thoughts of his four visitors. He is perturbed by a recent quarrel between Blount and Copeland—they are both so heated whenever they talk to him about it that he... (full context)

Copeland also regrets the horrible, angry feelings he’s been wrestling with since his argument with Blount. Now, in the midst of his grief, he can’t even remember what they were fighting... (full context)

Jake runs through town, attempting to ignore the nausea rising in his throat. A riot has... (full context)

Though Jake tried to stop the fight, even throwing himself into the fray at one point, he... (full context)

As Jake continues jogging through the streets away from Sunny Dixie, he runs into Simms preaching on... (full context)

As Jake wanders onward, he thinks of Singer’s death, and of how sad and angry it has... (full context)

Jake runs back to the room where he’s been staying and gathers up his things, packing... (full context)

Though going by the Kelly house—the place where Singer killed himself—gives Jake a bad feeling, he heads there next to ask Portia where her father is. Portia... (full context)

A heavy rain begins to fall as Jake makes his way to the New York Café. Biff Brannon greets him happily, stating that... (full context)

Jake tells Brannon he’s skipping town, and Brannon says doing so is probably a good idea.... (full context)

Jake combs his hair and bids Brannon goodbye. Brannon once again tries to get Jake to... (full context)

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Jake Blount Character Analysis

Jake Blount Quotes in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Part 1, Chapter 2 Quotes

Part 1, Chapter 4 Quotes

Part 1, Chapter 6 Quotes

Part 2, Chapter 2 Quotes

Part 2, Chapter 13 Quotes

Part 3, Chapter 2 Quotes

Jake Blount Character Timeline in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter