Copeland, Singer's silent suffering and desolate loneliness are perhaps the most poignant of all. Though he is a confidant and comfort to Mick, Jake, Biff, and Dr. John Singer is a deaf man who boards with the Kelly family and earns his living as a silver engraver. "All is serene," McCullers writes toward the end of her story-life is an old whistled tune, water pitchers are full of zinnias, and the morning sun will come again. Whether quiet or roaring, deliberate or reckless, the five voices of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter unite in a common cry of isolation, a theme that reverberates through McCullers's other works. Not until the novel's startling climax do any of these lonely souls fully appreciate Singer's importance in their lives. Biff's wife dies, leaving him with a deeper longing to relate to his patrons, and sad that he doesn't have his own children. New to town and friendless, Jake yearns to help the working class, but his alcoholism muddles his message and carries him toward self-destruction. Copeland has tuberculosis and his son, Willie, is sent to jail. Mick drops out of school to help support her family after her younger brother accidentally shoots a little girl. Over the course of a year, the characters encounter difficult troubles and find solace in Singer. Singer even saves his hard-earned money to buy a movie projector for his friend. He does, however, open himself to Antonapoulos through visits and letters. Each outcast believes that only Singer can understand his or her loneliness, although Singer reveals little of himself to them. The amiable Singer is a confidant for four of the town's misfits-Mick Kelly, a teenage girl who dreams of becoming a trained musician Benedict Mady Copeland, the town's black doctor Jake Blount, an alcoholic socialist and Biff Brannon, the owner of the local café.Įach of these four characters regularly visits Singer, telling him about the injustices and pain in their lives. At the center, like the hub of a wheel, is John Singer, who rents a room in the Kelly house after his fellow deaf companion, Spiros Antonapoulos, is sent away to an asylum. Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) is set in a small Georgia mill town in the late 1930s.
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