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
By the middle of summer, John Singer has become the boarder at the Kelly house with the most visitors. Each evening after dinner at the New York Café, he returns to his 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.
It’s somewhat ironic that all of these lonely characters seek out the same person for comfort; their relationships with Singer make them a kind of community, but they’re so focused on their own individual issues that this connection isn’t apparent to them.
Themes
To Mick, talking to Singer is “like a game”—when Mick is with him, she feels like she’s discovering new kinds of music. She often plays with Singer’s chess pieces as she talks, and no matter what embarrassing things she says or does, he always treats her kindly. Doctor Copeland begins visiting Singer after writing him a letter about his patient. Doctor Copeland senses none of the “quiet insolence” found in most white men in Singer, 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 and angrily to Singer about politics and revolution. Biff Brannon visits on occasion, too, but never for more than half an hour so as not to abandon the café for too long.
Each of the four main characters have their own separate reasons for making their initial visits to Singer’s room—but what keeps them coming back is the feeling of being seen, heard, known, and, above all, accepted. Singer is a mirror for their insecurities and anxieties, and he helps each of them to see themselves a little bit more kindly.
Themes
Singer tries to express the same quiet understanding to each of his visitors. On the rare occasion no one comes by, he goes to a movie. One day in July, he leaves town without telling anyone to go visit Antonapoulos in the asylum—a trip he’s been quietly planning and dreaming of for months. Upon arriving, Singer greets Antonapoulos warmly and gives him several gifts. Antonapoulos, however, is uninterested in the gifts. Singer can barely move his hands fast enough to say all he’s been longing to say to Antonapoulos for months, but Antonapoulos doesn’t talk back or move his hands at all (except to fumble with the crotch of his pants).
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 not to understand their questions, and avoids answering them. He knows that even if he doesn’t always respond to them, they’ll keep coming—he knows they feel he will always understand the things they have to say.
Though Singer will listen happily to as much or as little as his guests want to share with him, he chooses to keep his private thoughts inside—perhaps out of embarrassment, perhaps out of politeness, or perhaps out of the fear that all the rest of them have: the fear that he won’t be properly understood.
Themes
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