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Essay on The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter revolves around five characters. The central character that holds the book together is John Singer. He is a deaf-mute, and his friend, another deaf-mute, Antonopoulos, is his best friend. When Antonopoulos is put in an asylum, Singer finds himself friendless, and unable to communicate with anyone. He goes to the owner of a cafe, Biff Brannon, and eats at his restaurant three times a day. Through him, Singer meets three other people. One is a black man, Dr. Copeland, who is obsessed with educating his race and ending their oppression. Another is Jake Blount who is a white man who promotes socialist ideals.
The third is a teenage girl, Mick, who wants to be a great composer, much like Carson, and whose family Singer ends up living with. These three people are constantly talking to the mute, who can’t really understand them; he can only lip-read. Not only do these characters pour their hearts out to someone who can’t grasp what they’re talking about, but in their minds they change him into someone who can understand them. Everyone in the town admires Singer. Every racial and religious group claims him as one of their own, and since little is known about him, none of the views can be contradicted.
The reader, then, sees Singer through the eyes of these characters, and can easily be taken in as well, believing that the deaf-mute has superhuman understanding. It is much later in the story, in chapter seven of the second section, when the reader realizes that Singer understands little; he just lets "the people" in his room so he can avoid being lonely. But he must care for them, since he buys a radio for them to listen to when they come in, despite the fact that he cannot hear it........
