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 October arrives, the days grow cool and clear. Biff Brannon installs a hot chocolate machine at the New York Café—the drink is a big hit, especially with Mick Kelly, who comes in four times a week for a cup. Mick always seems sad lately, and Biff wishes he could stroke her hair or comfort her, but he can barely even speak to her casually without his voice taking on a “rough, strange sound.”
Biff’s feelings toward Mick are paternal—but also vaguely inappropriate. Biff, like Mick, has a lot of feelings to express and a lot of love to give—but he’s kept himself so tensed up and closed off that he struggles with finding a healthy way to express what’s inside him.
Themes
Biff has a lot on his mind. His wife Alice has taken ill. She is exhausted all the time and begins making mistakes while working the till during the day. One afternoon, Biff hears Alice scream in pain. He runs upstairs and rushes her to the hospital, where doctors remove “a tumor […] the size of a newborn.” An hour after the surgery, though, Alice is dead. In the days that follow, Biff feels hopelessly sad and lonely in his newly widowed state and even contemplates suicide.
Biff’s wife Alice’s sudden, shocking, and macabre death leaves him feeling more isolated than ever—and less hopeful than ever that he’ll be able to make the connections he longs to make. It’s also notable that Alice’s tumor is compared to a newborn; Biff desperately wants to be a father, but his wife’s visit to the hospital ends in tragedy rather than the joy of new life.
Themes
One afternoon, Biff visits Singer, who has offered to be a pallbearer at Alice’s funeral. The two sit in Singer’s room and smoke a pair of cigarettes. Singer dresses, and the two of them go out together so that Singer can help Biff run some errands in preparation for the funeral. When Biff returns home, he sorts through Alice’s things and bundles them up to give to her sister Lucile Wilson.
Biff is, during his visits with Singer, the least verbose out of the four main characters in the novel. This speaks to Biff’s emotional repression—but it also shows that Biff is perhaps the least selfish and most introspective of them all.
Themes
On the day of the funeral, Biff brings Alice’s things to Lucile’s. Though Alice was her sister, the two are very unalike in demeanor and appearance. Lucile readies her daughter, Baby, for the funeral. As she puts waves in Baby’s hair, she tells Biff about how Baby is the only thing keeping her focused on the future. She prattles on to Biff about her dreams of taking Baby to Atlanta to get a perm so that Baby will be beautiful enough to be in the movies. Lucile has Baby enrolled in dance and acting classes even though Baby is only four, and she wants to keep her special, talented daughter away from the “brats” around town.
Lucile refuses to deal with the death of her sister, instead focusing on her own dreams of fame for her daughter. She wants to get herself and Baby out of their small Southern town and far away from all the difficulties they’ve endured there.
Themes
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After getting Baby ready, Lucile goes off to get herself dressed. She leaves Baby with Biff, and Baby performs splits and dance routines for her uncle. When Lucile returns, she and Biff talk briefly about her ex-husband—an abusive, good-for-nothing man who hasn’t been seen in town for a long time—and the three of them get ready to leave for the funeral. In a quiet moment, Biff and Lucile both state that neither of them is certain they want to ever get married again.
Biff and Lucile are both lonely people. Lucile wants to run from the pain of her past, but Biff doesn’t yet know how to reckon with his own sorrow and grief. Notably, however, they’re both pretty sure that they don’t want to get married, which demonstrates how they’re both hesitant to connect with other people—even though doing so might make them less lonely.
Themes
The following evening, 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 shouts drunkenly about his inability to make others “see the truth” while Singer quietly nods along. As Biff watches Mick play on a little slot machine at the back of the café, he wishes he could go talk to her—but can’t think of anything he’d like to say. Biff is puzzled by the part of him that “almost wishe[s]” he could be a mother to Mick and Baby.
Biff’s emerging paternal desires—or maternal ones, by his own admission—demonstrate just how intense his loneliness is. Biff was unhappy in his childless (and possibly loveless) marriage to Alice, and now he focuses on impossible wishes—instead of noticing how much support he already has from his café’s patrons.
Themes
Biff turns his attention to the stack of newspapers that have piled up at the register. He plans to do a deep cleaning and get organized tomorrow, clearing out the junk in the café and the office. Biff tries to read one of the newspapers, but becomes overwhelmed when a song on the radio reminds him of his engagement to Alice. Biff shuts the radio off.
Biff’s marriage to Alice was difficult and often unhappy, but he still mourns her loss because it means he is alone—in love, in business, and in life.
Themes
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 sidling up to a drunk and a deaf man—and wonders at Singer’s magnetic power over so many people. Biff longs to join the three of them at their table, but knows he has a café to run.
