卡森·麦卡勒斯小说《心是孤独的猎手》中约翰·辛格的孤独

John Singer’s Loneliness in Carson McCullers’ Novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Abstract

Carson McCullers (1917-1967) is an important writer in the 20th century in United States. Her debut novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter attracted attention from American critics after coming out in 1940. This novel manifests uniqueness not only in concentrating on those who are isolated, distorted, strange individuals, but in rendering manifold theme and preceding thinking of gender, race, and spiritual state of American Southerner in 1930s. By exploring author’s depiction of John Singer’s loneliness, this paper proffers a simple analysis of the loneliness in Singer and the inner longing for the freedom, love and mutual understanding from the perspective of existentialism, exploring the discrepancy between the desire for freedom beneath loneliness and the repressive society.

Except the introduction and conclusion, this essay is divided into four chapters. First chapter offers illustration of Singer’s loneliness from the perspective of existentialism in both the inner and outer impact. Second chapter analyzes several methods that the author uses to speak out the loneliness. Then the third chapter investigates the reasons of Singer’s loneliness in such a period. The loneliness in the novel is full of the hint of destiny and fate, which seems inescapable and irreplaceable. Last chapter explores the connection between the loneliness in the novel and the outer space during the time when the author wrote this novel. By analyzing this novel, this thesis concludes that through character development and portray of loneliness, this novel reveals the suffering, repression caused by the faltering economy at the thirties of twentieth century, and the alienation under such milieu, expresses McCullers’ appeal to the freedom and liberation in the social environment of the time she lived. 

Key words: Carson McCullers; The Heart is a Lonely Hunter; John Singer; loneliness; existentialism