I am well on my way to being awed and intimidated by McCullers’ writing. This is one author I do want to know more about; natural talent? study of writing? a reader? an observer?
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is one of my favorite styles of storytelling in that the characters provide the drama through their reactions to the situation (I remember something from Aristotle’s Poetics that stresses the difference between actions of characters and events as the point of story). While each character is allowed to be turned inside out by the narrative omniscient third person pov, McCullers slowly reveals them then places a very simple event in front of them and we get to see how they react, learning even more about them in the process. These characters–mainly, Mick, Jake, Dr. Copeland, and Biff–each seek out something beyond their world and their disillusionment with it. They each feel apart from the rest of humanity and each seek a different path. But they all seem to find some measure of belonging with the enigmatic deaf-mute, Mr. Singer.
Is it the fact that he doesn’t talk, doesn’t argue, doesn’t try to change them or their views? Their hopeless and helpless feelings and desire to belong and yet change the way things happen is met with such disappointment in the world. Does Singer provide for them an ally of sorts?
We find that the volatile Jake Blount carries within him an idealistic view of what the world should be, and a heavy blame on religion, government, and the wealthy for not allowing it to be so. Active in his younger days in his rebellions, his outlets now are drinking and ranting to Mr. Singer–one of the few he feels, "knows."
We’d seen Dr. Copeland’s father-in-law’s view of world and Jesus, and this is Jake’s personal hope:
"But look what the Church has done to Jesus during the last two thousand years. What they have made of him. How they have turned every word he spoke for their own vile ends. Jesus would be framed and in jail if he was living today. Jesus would be one who really knows. Me and Jesus would sit across the table and I would look at him and he would look at me and we would both know that the other knew. Me and Jesus and Karl Marx could all sit at a table… (p. 134)
McCullers gives us Jake in all his lost and lonely soul in another brief action. He is on his way home and spots writing on a wall in an alley and curious, goes to read it. In red chalk:
Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth.
He read the message twice and looked anxiously up and down the street. No one was in sight. After a few minutes of puzzled deliberation he took from his pocket a thick red pencil and wrote carefully beneath the inscription:
Whoever wrote the above meet me here tomorrow at noon. Wednesday, November 29. Or the next day. (p. 135)
Jake goes back at the appointed time on both days and waits for an hour. No one comes. On the third day the rain washes the words away.
He never realizes the truth of the situation.