The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter In Carson McCuller’s novel, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, the main theme is isolation and a search for some connection to be normal. McCuller’s traces the lives of five characters that center their lives around one main character named John Singer, a deaf-mute. These characters are representative of all people and not just their specific characters in the novel. McCuller’s is characterized as a Southern-Gothic writer, and was known for her depiction of lonely characters, as well as carefully describing the sexual alienation of their desolate lives. This novel was considered one of McCuller’s best works, and it certainly reflects the strange beauty and the encoded messages that she was so well known for. In The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, one theme that particularly stands out is the gay love between John Singer and Spiros Antonopoulos, as well as homosexuality within the other characters personas.
The fact that the two subjects are deaf and mute, the events that take place throughout the novel and the hidden language within the writing, all lead the reader to believe that a message is being sent and that message is that John Singer has a homosexual love for S. Antonopoulos. Although it is never obvious that the novel is gay or lesbian, characters like the tomboy, Mick, the sensitive Biff Brannon as well as John Singer himself, offers a resistance to the social ideal of heterosexuality. When the novel The Heart is A Lonely Hunter was first published in 1940, same sex relationships were extremely taboo. Gay content was often coded in books and movies during this time period and never expressed openly. Gay’s were considered crazy and outcasts and as the story goes, Antonopoulos, John Singer’s, Greek, male companion who he desperately loved, was sent to a mental hospital after he went insane at the beginning of the novel.
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Singer was very upset that his friend was taken from him. From the first pages of the novel, one can assume that Singer and Antonopoulos are two lovers: ‘Every morning the two friends walked silently together until they reached the fruit and candy store… .’ The symbolism in the way the two are deaf and mute can symbolize many things but the way that they walked silently until they reached the fruit and candy story implies that these two are hiding something. The word ‘fruit’ also is slang for a queer person. Singer is the obvious homosexual in the story.
He is the one who does the house chores while living with Antonopoulos. He is somewhat of a motherly figure to him; always looking out for him, and then wanting to take custody of Antonopoulos when he is sent to the mental hospital. Singer sends him a love letter and gives him gifts. The letter reads, ‘…
The way I need you is loneliness I cannot bear. Soon I will come again. My vacation is not due for six months but I think I can arrange it before then. I think I will have to. I am not meant to be alone and without you who understand.’ Singer is very lonely without Antonopoulos, and his dream after he writes the letter describes Singer and Antonopoulos naked on the street.
This dream of two naked men is somewhat of a homosexual fantasy in itself. The gifts he sent Antonopoulos are not very masculine either, such as the night clothes and the slippers. When Singer hasn’t seen his friend in six months, he decides to take the train to visit him. He gathers some gifts; again a very symbolic fruit arrangement and dresses up in a suit. When the young hospital worker tells him that Antonopoulos is dead, Singer goes into a state of shock.
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Singer’s love for his friend Antonopoulos eventually makes him take his own life. The symbolism in this novel is everywhere. Consider John Singer’s disability to hear and speak. A gay person in the south in the 1940’s experienced a lot of alienation and isolation from the rest of the public. They were not able to express themselves, as the gay’s today are able to, nor were they able to fit into the social norms.
Deafness is symbolic of not fitting into the social norm. Singer was not able to hear conversations that the others had. But his ability to read lips was his way of understanding what the other was saying even if they weren’t able to communicate on his level. A homosexual today may experience that same feeling of alienation and inexpressibility. Singer’s inability to speak symbolizes how a queer person in those times was unable to express themselves. Such a person would not be able to show how they felt for another in public, unless it was behind closed doors or as McCullers puts it, sign language.
Singer’s last name in itself is very symbolic since Singer is not even able to speak let alone sing. Observations about the other characters also lead one to believe that homosexuality is very prevalent in this novel. The ways Mick dresses in boys clothes can be representative of McCullers own lesbian lifestyle. Antonopoulos’ Greek ethnicity reflecting the concept of “Greek Love” and Biff Brannon’s enjoyment of putting on women’s perfume and performing “women duties. Singer’s personality also reflects that of a gay man in love with another man but McCuller’s does not portray any of the characters as flamboyant or erotic. She describes them in a sensitive, female-like and compassionate way.
John Singer is very understanding of the other character’s problems. The way he listens to the other characters is similar to how a gay friend of women listens to all of their problems as if they really understand what that person is going through. The women usually love their friends for their listening skill more so than the answers they give them. When Antonopoulos is described, the writer uses very descriptive words to describe him, more so than the other characters. She calls him a ‘dreamy Greek.’ and uses words one would almost consider sexual. The fact that Antonopoulos is a Greek may make one curious as to why McCuller’s chose this ethnicity for the character.
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In ancient Greece-the glorious civilization that is the foundation of our Western culture, men from mythology to the military openly had queer sex. When the Judea-Christian view came into effect the view of gay sex was very anti-gay. Christianized Rome began persecuting the homosexuals but for the most part it was the passive ones who had it worst. There are still some macho societies that still exist today from Mexico to the Middle East.
The idea that McCuller’s chose the character Antonopoulos to be Greek was to imply that although Greek view of homosexuality may be considered crazy and we can throw it in a mental hospital as if it will be cured but it will still be here and although we may not approve of it we may be the one loving them without knowing just as the characters loved Singer and Singer loved Antonopoulos. Some might say that for 1940, the sexual content in this book was overt. This can be noted with characters Mick and Biff Brannon who also depict homosexuality. In Part 2, Chapter 2, the narrator say “By nature all people are of both sexes.” This attitude was shared by Carson McCullers, who was a bisexual herself. One may speculate that Mick the tomboy might become, Mick the lesbian. Biff Brannon represents another aspect of Greek love as well with his fondness for his dead wife’s clothes and perfume.
In Greek there are 3 words for love, Eros, Agape and Philia. Eros is the romantic, hormone-raging, sexual love. Agape is the deep, connecting, brotherly love. Philia means friendship or amiability but it is the root word for many types of obsessions we categorize today.
Some terms we may commonly find the root Philia in today are necrophilia, pedophilia. Biff Brannon would be the necrophilia example. A simple investigation of Carson McCuller’s own life easily explains how her novel, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, has many references love. “Spiritual isolation is the basis of most of my themes. My first book was concerned with this, almost entirely, and all of my books since, in one way or another. Love, and especially love of a person who is incapable of returning or receiving it, is at the heart of my selection of grotesque figures to write about…
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.” John Singer is the pristine example of infirmity. “He loves a person who is incapable of receiving his love” When McCullers created the character John Singer, the original name was Harry Minow itz. She changed the name to John Singer after working on the novel for five hours then walking across a road, it occurred to her that Harry was a different man and immediately the name was changed. The symbolism in this novel is so deep and complex that one cannot understand where its origins are, not even the writer.
They erupt more so as an emotion than a thought and the McCullers wrote that when she is writing about a character she becomes that character. When writing about a Negro doctor, she becomes that Negro doctor and when writing about a homosexual man she becomes that homosexual man. As with the case of John Singer, maybe the emotional eruption that McCullers had while writing each character made John Singer’s love for Spiros Antonopoulos the homosexual one we perceive today. When studying the characters in the novel The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCuller’s it is easy to conclude that there is a homosexual innuendo following some of the characters.
The most obvious being the deaf-mute John Singer. The symbolism, language, the time period the novel was written as well as the events that take place throughout the novel all lead the reader to identify one of the themes as the homosexual love that John Singer has for his friend Spiros Antonopoulos and the spiritual isolation that each character suffers.
