Notes

McCullers develops the character of John Singer with much greater depth in this chapter, almost the exact center of the novel. Thus far, the reader has a clear idea of SingerÂ’s adoration of his friend Spiros Antonapoulos, but the focus of the novel has been more from the point of view of the four figures who project their own needs for love and understanding onto Singer. What Singer has thought of them has been largely left to conjecture. Here, we find out that Singer is quite preoccupied with the feelings of these four people, but only in a curious, distanced sort of way. Of Jake Blount, for instance, he writes to Spiros, "He thinks he and I have a secret together but I do not know what it is." The effect of the delay in giving his point of view and then showing that he feels a little bewildered by all these lonely hearts is almost comic. They have made an all-knowing, all-understanding idol of him, and, in fact, he knows very little.

A second aspect of his character developed here is his fastidious sense that it is every personÂ’s obligation to care for others, especially to take other peopleÂ’s feelings into account. Singer likes to have people around him. He is imminently polite and is always taken aback when someone else is impolite. When the four people come over to see him at the same time, he is shocked to find them being rude to one another. Singer is actually quite naive about the separations of his society. He doesnÂ’t seem to have been conditioned at all in the racism so prevalent in the U.S. and especially in the Southern states. Biff Brannon notices in an earlier chapter that Singer doesnÂ’t find it at all improper to invite a young girl to sit with him and another adult man in an all night cafe. As much as he has seen the stories of these four people, he doesnÂ’t know them very well at all. If he did, he would know that they have conflicting personalities.

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