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MonkeyNotes-The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
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PLOT (SYNOPSIS)
Part I, describes two mutes who are friends and live together. One
is a big Greek man, Spiros Antonapoulos, and the other is a tall,
thin man named John Singer. Soon, however, Antonapoulos begins
to act in anti-social ways and his cousin sends him to an insane
asylum. Singer is bereft. He begins to take all his meals at a cafe
that is run by Biff Brannon. Biff likes to watch people and is
especially interested lately in a man named Jack Blount, a drunk
who shouts anti-capitalist propaganda. He is also interested in
Mick Kelly. Mick is a girl of twelve of a large family that runs a
boarding house. Since her parents are busy with work, the job of
care-taking her two younger brothers is left to Mick. She thinks of
Mr. Singer and music all the time. Jake has gotten drunk and in a
strange fight with a wall. He wakes up in SingerÂ’s room and then
goes out and gets a job at a carnival. On the way to the job, he sees
a sign quoted from the Bible painted on a wall. After work, he
likes to walk the streets of the mill town and preach the ideas of
economic justice. Often he is laughed at. Another character, Doctor
Copeland is introduced here. He is visited in his home by his
daughter, Portia, who works as a housekeeper for the Kellys. They
discuss the merits of John Singer. At the end of their evening, he
meets PortiaÂ’s husband Highboy, and his estranged son, Willie, but
cannot refrain from getting into an argument with them about their
lack of interest in uplifting the African-American community.
Singer takes a vacation so he can go to visit Spiros. He feels great
relief at being about to speak to him. He takes him out to dinner on
his last day there and Spiros refuses to leave the restaurant to
return to the asylum. Singer finally returns to town and
reestablishes contact with his four friends.
In book two, Mick has a very busy summer. She discovers a sense
of her fatherÂ’s separate identity and feels compassion for him in his
loneliness. She throws a party for her high school classmates. It
begins as a formal affair and ends in a play time as if the children
want to be children again. Meanwhile, Biff Brannon has realized
that he is in love with Mick Kelly and feels very guilty over these
feelings. His wife sickens and dies and he arranges the funeral with
due respect. He sees Singer in his cafe with Jake and Mick. Doctor
Copeland also spends a good deal of time with Singer. His son,
Willie, is arrested for getting into a fight and is sent to a work
camp for nine months. The doctor remembers his childhood and
his early marriage to Daisy. He had loved Daisy greatly, but had
wanted to make of her a different kind of person. When he had hurt
her so many times, she finally took the four children and left him.
DaisyÂ’s father is in town to comfort Portia in her pain over WillieÂ’s
imprisonment. Doctor Copeland goes to visit them at PortiaÂ’s
insistence. He is stiff with anger at their talk of a white God and a
judgment day when they will all be turned white as a reward for
leading submissive lives. When he goes to SingerÂ’s, he runs into
Jake on the stairs. Jake remembers his life as a very poor boy. He
had left home and spent some time as a traveling preacher. He had
driven a nail into his palm one night. Then he found a woman who
taught him about Marx and he had changed the text of his sermons.
He feels like there are two groups of people, the knows and the
donÂ’t knows and it is his responsibility to teach the donÂ’t knows.
He has spend many frustrated years trying to organize people.
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