Ready Reference Treatise: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

By Raja Sharma

“The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” by Carson McCullers was first published in 1940. It was the author’s debut novel. When the book was published, Caron McCullers was only twenty-three-year old.

The story revolves around John Singer who can neither speak nor listen. The novel details his life and the people he comes across in a 1930s mill town in the state of Georgia, in the United States.

Ready Reference Treatise: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Apr 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310921711

Raja Sharma

Raja Sharma is a retired college lecturer.He has taught English Literature to University students for more than two decades.His students are scattered all over the world, and it is noticeable that he is in contact with more than ninety thousand of his students.

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Ready Reference Treatise: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Copyright

Ready Reference Treatise: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Raja Sharma

Copyright@2015 Raja Sharma

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Chapter One: Introduction

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers was first published in 1940. It was the author’s debut novel. When the book was published, Caron McCullers was only twenty-three-year old.

The story revolves around John Singer who can neither speak nor listen. The novel details his life and the people he comes across in a 1930s mill town in the state of Georgia, in the United States.

The author, Carson McCullers, was born on 19th of February, 1917 in Columbia, Georgia. She was born Lula Carson Smith. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is the author’s most autobiographical novel.

Her father was a jeweler by profession and he also repaired watches. Her mother used to work for the jeweler who had employed her father before he started his own business.

During her teens Carson became a passionate pianist. She soon realized that she really wanted to become a writer. She once mentioned that writing was her ‘search for God.’

Several of the characters and events in the novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter are inspired by her own life experiences as she was coming-of-age.

She is often compared to other Southern women writers of her time. Some other critics say that she is more closely linked to Thomas Wolfe, Sherwood Anderson, and William Saroyan.

According to McCullers she wrote in the tradition of the Russian realists. She wrote The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter while she was studying writing at New York University and Columbia University.

Chapter Two: Plot Overview

The opening chapter of the novel introduces the reader to John Singer and Spiros Antonapoulos. They are very good friends. They live together in a town in the Deep South. Both of them are deaf and mute.

Antonapoulos is employed at his cousin’s fruit store. Silver works in a jewelry shop. He works as a silver engraver. They have been living together for ten years.

One day, Antonapoulos falls sick. Although he recovers, he becomes a changed man. He develops strange habits. He begins stealing and urinating on buildings. His behavior becomes quite erratic.

Eventually, he is sent to a mental asylum by his cousin. Singer does not like that Antonapoulos should be sent away. After his departure, Singer begins to live in a local boarding house in town. The Kellys run that boarding house.

The narrative shifts to Biff Brannon, who is the owner of the New York Café. Singer takes all his meals in that café. Biff is at the counter. He is watching a new patron named Jake Blount. Jake is constantly drunk and intriguing.

Jake Blount looks around and goes over and sits with Singer. He begins talking to Singer as though they are two good friends.

Singer gets up and leaves. When Jake realizes that Singer has left, he leaves his seat and goes into an alley and begins beating his head and fists against a brick wall. He is bruised and bloody in a short while.

The police arrives and they take Jake back to the café. Singer wants to help and he allows Jake to spend that night with him.

At this point the narrator is changed and the story is told from the perspective of Mick Kelly. She is the teenage daughter of the owners of the boarding house where Singer stays. Mick has two younger brothers, Bubber and Ralph. During summer, she spends most of her time with them.

Mick loves music. She is so much passionate about music that she tries to make a violin out of a ukulele and strings from different instruments. She fails in making a violin and gets frustrated.

The narrative switches to the point of view of Blount. Jake gets a job as a mechanic at a local carnival. While he is one his way home, he shares his socialist ideas with some fellow workers. They laugh at his ideas. He goes back to John Singer’s place to