SOURCE: Rich, Nancy B. “The ‘Ironic Parable of Fascism’ in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.” Southern Literary Journal 9, no. 2 (spring 1977): 108-23.

[In the following essay, Rich investigates the role of politics in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and perceives the novel as a political parable.]

Although Carson McCullers referred to her novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, as “an ironic parable of Fascism,” critics have not taken her statement seriously,¹ either because it seems too general a reference to the social and economic conditions of the novel or because it appears too restrictive in terms of the theme of isolation.² Considerable evidence, however, suggests the probability that politics was a motivating factor in the genesis of the novel and that the parable is a key not only to broader implications in the theme but also to the tight construction McCullers claimed and reviewers have so often questioned.³

Shortly before beginning work on the novel, the author expressed some desire to become politically active and even attempted to start a magazine for this purpose.⁴ In an outline written for her publisher, she specified as causes for man's “inner isolation” a “wasteful short-sighted society” and an “unnatural social condition.”⁵ The text itself has hundreds of political allusions, casts two major characters as social and political idealists, and devotes a section to the debate of alternative reforms.⁶ Finally, the dream tableau, which critics agree is central to the meaning of the novel, may, with its pyramidal structure, be construed to designate the democratic hierarchy just as legitimately as it may the religious one so often cited.⁷

Perhaps the most logical way to approach this novel is as a parable, for its context clarifies such mysteries as the function and meaning of Antonapoulos,⁸ its structure is clear, and its theme is specific. The parable has a conventional protagonist pitted against specific forces, but develops in thematic patterns rather than in traditional plot formation, treating successively the ideas of the nature of government, the failure of democracy, and the condition of freedom. The thematic patterns are delineated by situation and setting and dramatized through character and action. The parable's theme is an affirmation of the democratic process, but its implications are the universal problems of illusion versus reality and the nature of man himself. It not only supports but also greatly strengthens the theme of isolation. Far from being restrictive, it extends the dimensions of pathos already perceived.

Implicit in the parable are the assumptions of a historical debate which had raged since the late nineteenth century, and a conclusion to that debate in the idea that governmental systems should periodically undergo redefinition.⁹ Briefly, in the decade of the thirties, the rapid growth of technology and corporate power had created inequality between labor and management which, coupled with economic depression and continuing inequities between racial and social classes, left the individual virtually helpless. Strong governmental intervention was indicated, but opposed, perhaps because of people's reluctance to abandon traditional ideals. Yet the trusted bulwark of American freedom, the Jeffersonian concept that that government is best which governs least, had become a political anachronism. Thus, in ironic contrast to the European situation of de facto Fascism which denied liberty through force, American democracy denied liberty through default. Government in this parable therefore is represented by a deaf mute, and the instrument of oppression is the sound of silence, an image which McCullers introduces in her opening chapter where no word is spoken.

The author's decision to objectify the negative force of government as John Singer was the turning point in the construction of the novel,¹⁰ for it provided a means of dramatizing the image of silence and created a concrete symbolic structural device for the parable.

Singer, who is seen by most reviewers as the pivotal character of the novel,¹¹ achieves that status because the eye of every other character is on him. Minor characters who remain nameless except as they are associated with various ethnic, business or agricultural groups, think he is one of them, and major characters believe him sympathetic to the social, economic or political interests they pursue. The accuracy of their assumptions remains moot, for Singer neither confirms nor denies. In fact, aside from walking the streets, visiting Antonapoulos, and eating at Biff's café, Singer does almost nothing in the novel. He appears prominent, but in reality he is little more than a memory or an expectation in the minds of the other characters during a major portion of the action. The few specific acts which essentially define his character suggest democracy at work, for he takes in the homeless, gives money to the poor, and brings technology (the radio) within the reach of all. But his chief characteristic is his muteness, which is the mark of his distance from others. Moreover, the accessibility which brings others to him gradually diminishes as the novel progresses, so that as a symbol of government, Singer clearly exemplifies its ineffectuality. He welcomes people to his room at first because they relieve his solitude and sorrow, but in chapter seven of Book II, which is the mid-point of the novel, he comes to grips with the fact that these people “do not attend to the feelings of others”; feeling “alone … in an alien land,” he gradually withdraws. Though Blount, the politician, is still with him occasionally, and he reappears briefly to nod to Mick when she takes a job, Singer is not, as a rule, to be seen. Mick begins to find his room dark and is told when she inquires that he has “just left.” In chapter eight, Biff says “Where's Singer,” and even when Blount finds him in, Singer seems unresponsive to his presence. He does follow Blount to Copeland's to investigate the violence done to Willy, but does not answer to Copeland, and when Blount turns around, he is gone. Thus as the figure of Singer gradually fades into the background, the parable shows that for all practical purposes government has become defunct.

Its absence is clearly manifest in the official silence which follows each successive act of violence (the violence begins in earnest in chapter seven and continues to become worse). Houses are burned, people are found murdered, riots erupt and children play with loaded guns in the streets. Mayhem is committed by the law itself, and there is not, as Biff notes, “even a traffic light at the most dangerous intersection of town” (p. 14). The law is seldom in evidence, though a deputy sheriff does beat up Dr. Copeland. Commenting on the “crazy people doing terrible things,” Tennessee Williams suggested that they were symbols of “something almost too incredible and shocking to talk about.”¹² But it is not what people do that is incredible; it is the fact that nobody does anything. It is the sound of silence. This is, after all, not Fascist Germany but the land of the free. This is the Sunny Dixie Show (which incidentally “wants” a mechanic) with its “bright lights … and lazy laughter” where, in a strange Kafkaesque way, everything seems normal. Mick sits idly by while her little brother shoots the baby girl next door. Mill workers laugh when Jake tells them they are oppressed. The problem is that this kind of oppression defies logic because it wears no uniform and carries no gun. Jake senses something “sullen and dangerous” (218) under the deceptively bright Dixie Show, and this something is the insanity of imagining that everything is fine when reality clearly shows that it is not. “America,” says Jake, is a “crazy house” (118), and in fact it is a grotesquely distorted world where people seem oblivious to reality.

To clarify this point and dramatize her image of insanity, McCullers presents us with a king who rules benignly over a lunatic asylum.

Like Singer, Antonapoulos is a deaf mute, which signals that his role in the parable is associated with government; also like Singer, who used to be able to talk and was functional in the beginning of the novel, Antonapoulos was originally sane and a part of the work force in the town. But unlike Singer, Antonapoulos has always remained just out of view of the major characters. Singer is the arm of government, which is symbolized in chapter one by his continually trying to move the chess men around. But Antonapoulos is puzzled by the practical business of the game; he does not understand the female figures and prefers whites over blacks, an analogy to the historical confusion of how these minority figures should be treated in a free democratic society. The “dreamy Greek” is impractical because he symbolizes an ideal. His strange pagan / Christian aura is not really strange at all; it signifies his role in the “ironic parable of Fascism” as the representation of that combination of Greek democracy and Christian idealism which constitutes the basis of the American political system. His importance is designated by the fact that he is the first character mentioned in the novel. Mrs. McCullers wrote that “The broad principal theme of this book is indicated in the first dozen pages,”¹³ and these pages deal with his situation. He is at first seen working in a fruit and candy store, which symbolizes the worldliness of the temptation which leads to his corruption. In the parable, he finally succumbs to the power of money and influence exerted by American capitalism in the figure of his cousin Charles Parker, who, it is said, “did not know much about the American language—but he understood the American dollar very well” (8); this is Parker's only function in the novel. In his insanity, Antonapoulos loves to watch the animated cartoon figures of a Mickey Mouse world which, like the merry-go-round of the Sunny Dixie Show, is mechanical and unreal.

Except for Biff, who remembers him vaguely, no one in the town he leaves even thinks about him but Singer. As Singer rides through the American countryside, he associates the “abundance of growth and color” somehow with his friend, and in all his dreams, “Antonapoulos was there.” In the dream tableau, which defines the relationships of characters, Antonapoulos stands at the top, holding something above his head. This something is the Constitution of the United States, and Singer is fascinated by it, but unfortunately it exists only in his dream, and even then it remains just beyond the sight of the American people who are behind him in the dark; while he watches, the whole vision collapses. This tableau is indeed central to the novel, and it is a crystallization of the situation of the parable.

The dream occurs in chapter seven, the same chapter in which Singer begins to feel alone. The juxtaposition of the two things is not coincidental, for the dream is American democracy, and it cannot survive as a dream or a governmental structure alone. It is of and by the people and is therefore dependent on them. Singer says in this chapter that he hopes his four friends will come to visit him. When they do, however, their behavior leaves him bewildered. He explains in a letter to Antonapoulos that though the people have much in their hearts, they are “rude” to each other and “do not attend to the feelings of others … like they were from different cities.” “You would think,” he says, “when they are together they would be like those of the Society who meet at the convention.” The Society is described earlier in his letter as representatives “from many states,” but consisting of individuals like Antonapoulos.

The problem in terms of the parable is that the four people do not act in concert. Each represents a different faction, and because they are “rude” to each other, there is no clear voice from the people. This is the heart of the pathos in the parable, for all the characters need Singer, yet he is powerless to help unless they speak as a majority.

Blount is a radical and a politician, but he is unacquainted with Mick. Dr. Copeland is only interested in the Negro problem. Biff represents middle-class business interests, and is sympathetic to the others but does not really understand their problems. Mick represents both the white population in general (Lucille says she lives in a “common” neighborhood) and most women.¹⁴ This is why most reviewers “see Mick as the central personage of the novel.”¹⁵ But like Singer, she is a negative force—a “silent” majority—for although she has within her a song or dream, and might therefore restore the dream (Antonapoulos) to Singer, she does not know exactly what the dream is all about. The dream-song is entitled “THIS THING I WANT, I KNOW NOT WHAT” (238). Thus as the collective mind of the majority, she represents the real causes of the failure of democracy.

The tendency of reviewers to blame Mick's failure on social and economic factors has resulted in some critical vagueness with regard to her character, but her flaws are just as relevant to her personal tragedy as they are to her symbolic role. In the parable, she represents public apathy; its causes, which appear to be immaturity, immorality and irrationality, are manifest in her behavior. These traits may seem incongruous with our generally sympathetic view of Mick, but if we are deceived about her true fibre, it is because she is deceived about herself. Both the deception and the qualities are demonstrably major aspects of her character delineation.

Mick seems at first to be a nonconformist: she is a tomboy, disdains to join the scouts, and roams defiantly through the streets alone at night. She thinks of herself as an individualist and tells her sisters, “I have as good a right in here as you do … All I want are my own rights” (41). Later she says, “I don't want to be like either of you and I don't want to look like either of you. And I won't” (42). But at the party she experiments with wearing their clothes. Since at the end of the novel she joins their ranks, the original image of her is deceptive—as her behavior throughout the story indicates. When we first see her, she is buying cigarettes, not because she is rebellious but because she thinks she is too tall and that they will stunt her growth. She worries because she does not belong to a “bunch”; her impulse to conform is seen when she gives a party to gain peer acceptance and it is confirmed when she eventually dons the uniform of lipstick, earrings and dress.

Mick also has delusions about her morality. She worries that people may think her “common” (105), and tells Etta she wants “to be decent” (263). Reviewers appear to detect a flaw in this image, but defend Mick's “certain lines of maladjustment”¹⁶ on the grounds of her economic hardship. Hamilton, for instance, notes that “To survive in the ‘outside’ room you have to be mean and tough.”¹⁷ But this is not necessarily so, and in any case necessity is hardly a justifiable defense of immorality. Judge by her actions, Mick is selfish, dishonest and prejudiced.

Early in the novel she writes all over the walls of a new house, ignores her brother's crying, steals gum from the café, and loves to “devil Portia.” Later in the novel as she gets older we see that her actions are either rationalized on the basis of good intention or glazed with good manners. In a virtuous and dutiful effort to “manage” Bubba (for his own good), she punishes his innocent exploration of his body by instilling in him such guilt feelings that he is never able to function biologically in a normal way (168). She frightens him so badly in the shooting episode that his social behavior also becomes abnormal and eventually he totally withdraws from reality. Although she accepts her Jewish friend, she also uses him to satisfy her own need to experiment with sex (it was her idea to swim naked) and does not really understand him, which makes his position so uncomfortable that he leaves town. Mick's nightmares about Willy are not an indication of change in her racial attitudes; they merely show that she is not a monster. When Dr. Copeland tells his tragic story, she sympathetically offers him a cup of coffee, but patronizingly addresses him as “uncle” (195-96). Thus Mick is not entirely the “selfless seeker after love”¹⁸ she seems to be. In every respect except for her dream of music, she seems to exemplify that condition in America which Swedish philosopher Myrdahl labeled the “American dilemma,” which is to say that she thinks she embodies both Christian and democratic principles, when in fact she practices neither.

To put it more accurately, Mick does little thinking in general. As a child she painted some pictures which would appear to be perceptive impressions of a South gripped in violence, but she does not understand them. They just “came into her head without reason.” Even by the time she is in high school, she has not learned to think, for she takes Spanish but does not “say the words for the sense.” In fact, she “quit studying school lessons” to work on her music, but “had to concentrate hard,” and never could “think of ideas to fit the music” (237-38). She understands nothing of politics, for when Harry tells her the only “two things ahead … [are] Militant Democracy or Fascism,” she replies, “Don't you like Republicans?” (242). The truth is that Mick never grows up; she only grows tall. At her party, which is presumably her initiation rite, “everybody was a wild kid playing out on Saturday night—and she felt like the wildest of all.” McCullers points out that “The big kids were the ones who messed up everything. … [It was they who turned Mick's party into a] crazy house” (89).

After her sexual initiation, she thinks she is grown up and goes around asking if she seems “different.” The answer is no. Her rationality has been subverted by the stronger need to conform. The culmination of this process is seen when, incredibly, she sits idly by watching the children play with a loaded gun on her own doorstep. Intellectually and morally, Mick never matures, and the parable thus defines American gothicism as irrational, immature and lacking in the possibility of moral integrity. The pathetic symbol of Mick's adulthood is the addition of a glass of beer to her ice cream treat, and the strength of the indictment is mitigated only by McCullers's admonition, ironically voiced by Mick herself: “Forgive them, they know not what they do.”

Critics who interpret the novel without considering the parable see the dream tableau as a key to character relationships and conclude that Singer is a God figure and the other major characters are of equal stature in a row behind him. But in the parable, Singer represents the government, and what the tableau means is that theoretically all men are equal in relation to and in sight of government, and not to each other, since these characters are in no way alike. Neither the radical reformer nor the Negro nor the woman nor the conformist is going to change political systems in the thirties or for a long time to come. That leaves only Biff Brannon.

An unlikely candidate for hero, Biff has no special talent; he is not particularly “aware,” as is indicated by his watching “from a distance” when Copeland comes into his café and is insulted. Neither is he equipped with any special knowledge, for he continually asks questions, some of them not very astute. Nor is he possessed of “vision,” as some critics have asserted:¹⁹ when Blount talks of soul brotherhood, for instance, Biff thinks he means the Masons (19).

He works hard for a living and is married to a woman who teaches Sunday School. He is sentimental about children, family, old songs and the past. Always sympathetic to “Freaks,” he is a “sucker” for handouts, and though he does not seem to understand the sophisticated economic, social and political theory that Blount is always talking about, he is vaguely patriotic: his interests link the idea of democracy (he loves Ancient Greece), the spirit of freedom (his other favorite period is 1776), and the present (he has collected newspapers for twenty years). On the basis of these facts, Biff is clearly an average, middle-class American; therefore, he is the most important character in the parable, for its central question is concerned with the survival of freedom under a democratic political system.

Biff has been called a “latent homosexual”²⁰ (though critics have not been bothered by Mick's tomboyishness, and it is just possible McCullers has satirized the double standard in America as well as the restrictive social mores and strictly defined sexual roles of the thirties). Critics who call Biff a deviate do not dwell on why he is attracted to Mick instead of to Singer or Blount, and they tend to group the allegedly feminine traits together and ignore Biff's many other quite manly qualities. He has, for instance, an “iron jaw,” “dark hairy armpits,” “two fists and a quick tongue.” Within the context of the parable, Biff sews because he is an orderly, practical man and is not confined by the chauvinistic attitude that it is woman's work. The details of the redecorating of his room suggest his values. Bright colors and rich fabrics imply aesthetic appreciation and a romantic nature. The Japanese pagoda and the picture of “a little boy in velvet holding a ball” (Blue Boy?) indicate a desire to preserve a mixed cultural heritage. “Specimens of butterflies, a rare arrowhead [and] a curious rock shaped like a human profile” (172) are reminders of the nature of man. Biff's endeavors here are not those of a sick man; they are indications of a wise and gentle one. He wears his wife's perfume for the same reason he wears his mother's ring: they remind him of the past. Moreover, they reveal his strength; Jake recognizes and respects this, for although he jeers at Biff about his being a capitalist, he never ridicules the perfume.

Ironically Biff's role has always been underemphasized by critics. Evans, Hassan and others have acknowledged his important position at the beginning and end of the novel, but have not pursued the question of its significance, presumably because he is such an unlikely candidate for hero—particularly in the context of isolation as the major theme—and because the book has seemed generally unstructured anyway. The director of the movie version of the novel considered Biff so insignificant that he left him out of all but one scene. Recent criticism, however, is presenting evidence that Biff's role is indeed central. MacDonald's study of theological implications in the work does not recognize the social and political aspects of theme but does assert that Biff illustrates McCullers's “larger thesis.”²¹

Measured by conventional standards of plot construction, which are discernible in the parable, Biff is clearly the main character. The opening chapter introduces a situation which defines the two major images of silence and lunacy. Except for the two figures who symbolically dramatize these ideas, no other character but Biff appears in this chapter. Although specific clues as to the causes of the situations reflected in the images appear in the picture, Biff is remote from them in terms of his position in the chapter, the implication being that he is surrounded by things of which he is unaware. And yet these clues are the kinds of things an observant man like Biff should have seen or known or read about. Some of these are the power of capitalism (Charles Parker), racial and sexual prejudice (the chess men), and disregard for law (in the escapades of Antonapoulos).

The final chapter again evokes the images of silence and madness. Biff is alone in the “peaceful silence of the night,” except for the sound of a radio voice which is describing Hitler's evil schemes in Danzig. But this time there is a difference, for Biff labels this lunacy a “crisis,” and his own voice rings out through the quiet. In this chapter Biff dominates the scene and the emphasis is on his thoughts. He has not yet put together the pieces of the “puzzle of Singer,” but he is thinking about Willy, whom the law maimed, and Mick, who had “grown older,” and himself; and he has decided “money” and “profit” are not important to him.

The opening dialogue of the novel consists of two questions, both directed to Biff and both pertinent to the image situations. The first occurs at the close of chapter one when Singer asks if Biff will serve him (government in this parable only sleeps in the house of the conformist Mick) on a regular basis. The second question opens chapter two when Alice says, “Can't you get rid of that lunatic downstairs?” These are the broad, basic questions posed by the parable.

Specific questions relative to these larger ones are symbolized by the other characters and introduced to Biff as they parade through his café in chapter two. The possibility of political reform enters the novel in the figure of Jake Blount. The possibility of defying tradition enters in the form of Mick (who at the time is still a tomboy and refuses to join the Girl Scouts). Dr. Copeland walks in the door and the possibility of seeing Negroes as individuals is suggested when Biff recognizes him as a doctor. Simultaneously, of course, alternative possibilities are also implied: Blount acts rashly and antagonizes everyone, Mick is buying cigarettes, and Copeland is “not allowed.” Thus precipitous action, conformity, and a legally sanctioned but morally untenable position are also possible. Whether Biff will choose one or the other, or even recognize that they are alternatives, depends to some extent on his character.

Again adhering to the conventional pattern of delineating the hero's basic characteristics in the beginning, McCullers uses Alice as a foil in chapter two to suggest certain things about Biff. As the scene opens, and Alice asks Biff if he can get rid of the “lunatic,” he shows courage and a sense of integrity by defying her and not only supporting the rights of another (Blount) but also defending his own. “I like Freaks,” he says. The rest of the dialogue indicates that he is a nonconformist, is able to distinguish objectively between reality and appearance, and is able to use reason. Alice is said to have “no distinct point about her” and to be a “complete, unbroken figure,” which implies that she is a conformist. Being with her “always made him different from his real self” (in fact it made him impotent). He and Alice argue about whether Blount is what he appears to be, and Biff tells his wife that her trouble is that she cannot enjoy a “spectacle” because she cannot see the reality underneath. The implication is that he can. Finally, as he says, the “biggest difference” between them is that she does not “watch and think and try to figure anything out,” but he does.

At this point, McCullers's method departs from the conventional, for Biff Brannon has explicated his own character; and though he may think it is all true, it may not be. In fact, like the altenatives which the other characters symbolize, these characteristics are only possibilities within him. If he could think objectively, for instance, he could understand Blount. If he were a nonconformist, he would wear perfume before his wife dies. If he used reason, he would understand the “puzzle of Singer.” If, in fact, he were all of these things, he would act to break the silence and eliminate the insanity of his world, for he is the average middle-class man—one of substance and responsibility—and in him resides the power.

But it didn't happen that way, and what Carson McCullers is saying is that the average man's biggest problem is that he deceives himself. But he does have the intellectual and moral possibility to be better than he is, and there are some grounds for optimism in a man like Biff who at least knows what he wants to be, and in whom, as Hassan has noted, is to be seen “an image of clumsy endurance, a will for right action which no excess of hate or suffering or disenchantment can wholly suspend.”²² The fact that this will is exerting some influence on Biff is demonstrated by the slight change in him between the first scene and the last. When Biff first looks at himself in the mirror in chapter two, his eyes are “cold and staring,” and all his image tells him is that he needs a shave. In the last chapter, however, one eye is looking into the past and the other into the future; thus he is beginning to get perspective on things. Furthermore, he is frightened by the image and reacts by almost forcibly pulling himself together to take one positive step in the present.

McCullers commented that her heroes are “not the only human beings of their kind. Because of the essence of these people … they will someday be united and they will come into their own.”²³ History has proved that she was right. Biff is only one man, and the time was not ripe, which accounts for the seemingly pessimistic ending of the novel.²⁴ But he is “a sensible man”; in contrast to the discord outside, his café “is serene.” Somewhere, soundless in the background is the Negro he has hired. He is still working on the “puzzle of Singer.” The door of his café is never closed through the dark of night, which is the present; and one day, the parable implies, he will unite with others like himself to put a new image of government before the people, just as surely as he puts fresh flowers in his display. The implications of Biff's character thus suggest that the failure of democracy is itself an illusion—that the nature of the democratic process is like that of Biff, slow, and the condition of freedom is perseverance.

The parable reveals many things about Carson McCullers. Its structure supports her claim that the book “is planned according to a definite and balanced design.” The basis of this design is illusion, and the unconventional use of thematic patterns gives the effect of formlessness which itself is an illusion. Thus method is organically integral to theme.²⁵ Characterization shows sensitivity not just to the needs of the human heart but to the very essence of man. Although McCullers has at times been thought a provincial writer with “limited vision,”²⁶ the parable so deeply explores the human condition that it anticipates by implication such events of the next thirty years as Jewish integration, civil rights demonstrations, black integration, the “flower child” phenomenon, governmental capitulation, and women's liberation.

The parable thus heightens the sense of pathos in the novel by extending its implications to whole segments of the population. When the original publisher changed its title from The Mute to The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, he inadvertently shifted its focus from the sought-after to the seekers, thereby effectively restricting the theme to the plight of a few people. Embracing the parable as part of the general scheme of the novel helps restore its original power.

Notes

1. Frank Durham, “God and No God in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” The South Atlantic Quarterly, 56 (1957), 494.

2. Oliver Evans, The Ballad of Carson McCullers (London: Peter Owen, 1965), p. 43.

3. Edgar E. MacDonald observes McCullers's claim and summarizes criticism on form and structure in his “The Symbolic Unity of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” A Festschrift For Professor Marguerite Roberts (Richmond: Univ. of Richmond Press, 1976), p. 168.

4. Virginia Spencer Carr, The Lonely Hunter (New York: Doubleday, 1975), p. 57.

5. McCullers's outline is presented as an appendix in Evans, pp. 195-215.

6. Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Cambridge: Riverside, 1940). Page references are to this text.

7. Durham, p. 495.

8. Evans, p. 42.

9. Henry Steele Commager, ed., Living Ideas in America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951). Excerpts from essays by Henry George, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt demonstrate the crux of the debate.

10. McCullers's statement in Evans, p. 37.

11. Alice Hamilton, “Loneliness and Alienation: The Life and Work of Carson McCullers,” Dalhousie Review, 50 (1969), 221.

12. Tennessee Williams, “Introduction,” Reflections in a Golden Eye, by Carson McCullers (New York, 1950), p. xiii.

13. McCullers's outline, Evans, p. 195.

14. Frederic I. Carpenter, “The Adolescent in American Fiction,” The English Journal, 46, No. 6 (September 1957), 314-15. Carpenter says that Mick's problems are “those of American society” rather than those of adolescence per se.

15. MacDonald, p. 178.

16. David Madden, “The Paradox of the Need for Privacy and the Need for Understanding in Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” Literature and Psychology, 17 (1967), 128.

17. Hamilton, p. 221.

18. Evans, p. 46.

19. Hamilton, p. 222.

20. Madden, p. 132.

21. MacDonald, p. 178.

22. Ihab H. Hassan, “Carson McCullers: The Alchemy of Love and the Aesthetics of Pain,” Modern Fiction Studies, 5 (Winter 1960), 316.

23. McCullers's outline, Evans, p. 215.

24. Evans, p. 55.

25. In the opinion of this writer, McCullers's method is similar to that used by John Dos Passos in Manhattan Transfer. A clear, simple description of this technique may be found in Joseph Warren Beach, American Fiction, 1920-1940 (New York: Macmillan, 1941), pp. 47-50.

26. A. S. Knowles, Jr., “Six Bronze Petals and Two Red: Carson McCullers in the Forties,” The Forties: Fiction, Poetry, Drama (DeLand, Florida: Everett/Edward, 1969), p. 97.