Singer’s fundamental inability to communicate easily with his fellow townspeople renders him a tragic figure. Singer’s practical issues with communication and self-expression serve as a metaphor for the more existential or emotional issues the other characters have with their own attempts to make themselves seen, heard, and known.

When Antonapoulos is taken away to an asylum, however, Singer is once again the only deaf individual in town-there is no one around who understands sign language, and Singer resigns himself either to silence or to, on occasion, writing out simple sentences on pieces of paper. Deaf since infancy and mute for much of his adult life (due to his struggles in school speaking with his mouth and his resultant fear that “there was something disgusting in his speech”), John Singer uses sign language to communicate with his close friend, Spiros Antonapoulos, who is also deaf and mute. John Singer is the character who struggles most with the practical aspects of communication. McCullers uses five central characters-all of different ages, races, abilities, and walks of life-to illustrate the failures of communication and self-expression that lie at the very heart of the human experience. Through their struggles, McCullers argues that it is inherently impossible to fully communicate or express the truth of oneself to another person. As Carson McCullers’s characters battle their loneliness and isolation, she demonstrates how difficult true communication and authentic self-expression can be. But even as all five of the novel’s central characters yearn to be seen, heard, and understood, they often find themselves unable to communicate with one another in the most basic of ways. All of the characters in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter struggle with the desire not just for companionship, but for the feeling of being more deeply known.

The heart is lonely hunter