Black and White Christs in Carson McCullers's the Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
1991; University of North Carolina Press; Volume: 24; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1534-1461
Autores Tópico(s)American and British Literature Analysis
ResumoAs McCullers points out in her outline for The Mute (her original title for The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), major theme of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is man's revolt against his own inner isolation and his urge to express himself as fully as possible (124). The novel successfully portrays this theme through four characters' attempts to communicate with Singer, central character. This motif runs throughout McCullers's canon; in his essay McCullers: The Aesthetic of Pain, Louis Rubin explains McCullers's recurring theme: The McCullers fiction, I believe, has at its center a fundamental premise: which is, that solitude--loneliness--is a human constant, and cannot possibly be alleviated for very long at a time. But there is no philosophical acceptance of that condition, and none of joy in it that one finds in, say, Thomas Wolfe or even Hemingway. The solitude is inevitable, and always painful. Thus life is a matter of living in pain, and art is portraying of anguish. (270) Other critics view The Heart is a Lonely Hunter as an attack on social issues, specifically capitalism and racism. For example, Ihab H. Hassan, in his essay McCullers: The Alchemy of Love and Aesthetics of Pain, writes: Despite its disconsolate title, novel finds a way of acknowledging social realities of its time. Its events hark back to economic distress of thirties and reverberate with distant echoes of Nazi tyranny, and its spirit shudders with strangled South. (315) Although central theme of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is individual's spiritual isolation, McCullers poses subordinate themes such as adolescent initiation, dangers of capitalism, and evils of racism. These underlying themes rotate around central idea in much same manner as the people of this book can be described as being like spokes of a wheel--with Singer representing center point (Outline 143). In his book Carson McCullers, Richard Cook discusses McCullers's digression from her central motif: I think, however, more has been gained than lost by McCullers's attention to all distracting details that help so much in setting a novel.... For she has thereby invoked a more convincing and therefore more moving vision of her subject--the human being, trapped and suffering in isolation. Her treatment of Doctor Copeland and Negro problem, for instance, goes far beyond strict demands of novel's plot by describing in detail Southern Negro's superstitions, his experiences at hands of justice, and his physical illnesses. (43) McCullers provides a vivid portrait of plight of American Negro living in South during thirties, but in end this theme underlies her more significant theme: all individuals are lonely hunters--blacks, whites, children adolescents, freaks, and ordinary. She depicts this social issue, however, much more acutely than hitherto acknowledged in criticism of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. McCullers presents Doctor Copeland and his family as Negro characters in novel. He is an old doctor, educated in North, who has returned to South to help predicament of Negro race. Copeland's attitudes contrast sharply with those of his family, and McCullers implies that Negroes in community are much like his family. When we are first introduced to Doctor Copeland, narrator states that this contrast had lead to his separation from his family. He and Portia argue, he has never met Highboy, and he has not seen Willie for many years. He fights against everything his children become--subservient, uneducated, and passive reactors against racism. His mission to Negroes is to tell them of yoke they must thrust from their shoulders--the yoke of submission and slothfulness and to redeem them from cult of meekness (Hunter 69). …
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