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
It is 17 minutes to midnight, and the New York Café is deserted. Biff heads to the bathroom to put some of Alice’s old perfume on his neck, then fetches some flowers for the kitchen and arranges them in the front window, saving one zinnia in his pocket for himself. He steps out into the empty street to admire his work, then takes a little walk down the block. He wonders why he is bothering to keep the café open all night when hardly anyone ever comes by—there is no profit in what he’s doing. At the same time, he knows he’ll never close the café at nights for as long as he runs it.
Biff wants to keep the café open because he always wants the lonely outsiders like himself, Blount, Mick, and Singer to have a place to go. Biff understands the pain of loneliness and isolation, and wants to take up the mantle Singer has left behind and become the member of the community who signals solidarity and support to others.
Themes
Biff returns to the register and does some work on a crossword puzzle he’s been filling in all night. When he gets stuck on a clue, he takes the flower from his pocket and plucks the petals from it, playing she loves me/she loves me not. The last petal spells out love—but Biff knows there is no one around for him to love. He hasn’t even been able to give his strange, ineffable fatherly love to Mick.
Biff still feels terribly alone despite his role supporting others, just as Singer once did. He hasn’t figured out a way to express himself to anyone he loves or cares for, and he remains isolated with his feelings—the depths and nature of which not even he truly comprehends. He worries, perhaps, that all chances of understanding himself and the world around him have vanished with Singer.
Themes
Biff’s thoughts turn to Singer—he wonders why the man killed himself. Biff was tasked with making all of Singer’s funeral arrangements and was shocked and touched to see how well attended the funeral was, both by friends and acquaintances of Singer whom Biff recognized and by total strangers. Biff is lost in thought when he suddenly glimpses, all in one rush, a vision of “human struggle and of valor.” He has visions of people who labor and people who love—but the very instant he begins to comprehend the questions on his mind, the answers all vanish again.
Seeing the way people loved, respected, and mourned Singer allows Biff—for just a moment—to understand the beauty of human life and human struggle even in the face of terrible loneliness, cruelty, and sadness.
Themes
As Biff calms himself down, he feels “throttle[d]” by terror and suspended between two worlds. He tells himself to pull himself together and behave sensibly. He splashes some water on his face, then goes out to raise the awning. After completing his last task of the night, he returns inside the café to await the dawn.
Though understanding his love and reverence for Singer—and the love and reverence the whole town felt for the man—has allowed Biff to come close to understanding many of the mysteries of “human struggle,” the answers to these questions still elude him in the end, and his life, McCullers suggests, will go on as normal despite all that’s happened.
Themes
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