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
Mick has recently found herself disconnected from her “inside room”—she feels the need to be busy and around people all the time to avoid the fear that comes over her when she’s alone. Mick takes to following Singer throughout town whenever he goes out—but keeps as much of a distance from him as she can so that he doesn’t know she’s behind him. She also tries to keep her visits with Singer in his room to twice a week, to make sure he doesn’t get tired of her.
Mick’s inside room was her one refuge from the crushing pressure of her loneliness. Now, feeling barred from entry to that place, she seeks to ameliorate her loneliness in other ways—namely, by trailing Singer throughout town, desperate for his company.
Themes
Things in the Kelly house are unstable and uncertain—the family is strapped for cash due to their arrangement with Lucile Wilson, and on top of it all, the sickly Etta isn’t able to work. Mr. Kelly tries advertising his watch repair skills by putting signs up around town, but the extra publicity doesn’t do a thing for business. Mick does her best to forget about Harry. When he writes her a postcard, as he promised he would, she responds with a simple “O.K.”
Mick’s troubles swirl around her, creating a sense of strangeness and instability. She is caught in the middle, unable to do anything to help her family or change her circumstances, forced to insist she’s doing “O.K.” when she can barely feel the ground beneath her feet.
Themes
One of the boarders moves out, and Bill takes the man’s room. Mick, who has been sleeping on the couch, moves into George’s room, but still has trouble sleeping. She lies awake half the night most nights, full of terrible fears about calamity befalling her family. Because of her nighttime fears, Mick tries to keep George awake with her by talking to him and playing games with him. After George falls asleep, she tries to distract herself by doing math in her head. She wonders if Singer has ever felt the same fears she has, and she wishes she could talk with him about her frightening new feelings.
Mick is desperate to share her feelings with others and to have them reflected back to her. She seeks this comfort from George, but George is not the same “Bubber” he used to be—and though Mick longs to connect with Singer, she’s afraid of using up her precious time with him or scaring him off. Of course, the truth is that Singer does often feel similarly lonely, but the novel’s central irony is that even though these many lonely characters have so much in common, they can’t quite connect over their shared challenges.
Themes
One night in June, Hazel announces that she’s heard about a job opportunity at Woolworth’s. Hazel asks Mick if she’s interested. Mr. Kelly answers for her, explaining that Mick is too young to work—she needs to stay in school and finish growing. Hazel agrees that the question was impractical—Mick shouldn’t go to work. Mick, however, asks how much the job pays a week. When Hazel tells her it pays ten dollars, Mick becomes determined to take the job. In spite of her father’s initial hesitation, as soon as Mick says she wants the job, her parents both explode in happy laughter. That night, Mick waits on the porch for Singer to come home so that she can talk to him about the job, but after waiting several hours, she gives up and goes inside.
Though Mick’s parents know that the right thing for her to do is to stay in school and hold onto her childhood a little longer, they’re instantly ecstatic when the prospect of an end to—or at least more help with—their financial woes comes about. Mick knows that her family needs the money, but is desperate for someone to tell her she’s making the right choice—since she knows that she’ll be giving up a big part of herself by taking on the job.
Themes
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The next day, Hazel and Etta loan Mick some nice clothes and get her all made up for the interview at Woolworth’s. They pluck her eyebrows and rouge her cheeks, and by the time they’re done, Mick thinks she looks at least 16. As Mick waits for Hazel to take her down to the store, she wanders upstairs to Singer’s room. She doesn’t want to take the job anymore, but has come to realize how much her parents are counting on her to do so. She hurriedly explains the opportunity to Singer and asks him if she should take the job. He doesn’t answer her right away, but after a second, he nods. Mick and Hazel go to Woolworth’s, and, after a brief interview, Mick is hired.
This passage shows Mick’s fate: to become a cog in the machinery of capitalism in spite of all her attempts to be an individual and stand apart from society’s norms. Mick’s last hope was Singer—but she hews so closely to his word that after he encourages her to take the job, she seals her own fate and unthinkingly does what he tells her to, despite knowing what she’s giving up.
Themes
