SOURCE: Whitt, Jan. “The Loneliest Hunter.” Southern Literary Journal 24, no. 2 (spring 1992): 26-35.

In the following essay, Whitt views the character of John Singer as a Christ figure in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

“I've lost the presence of God!” cried the author of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter late in her career. Remembered afterwards by the group of artists who had been with Carson McCullers at the Yaddo Artists Colony, the statement provides a tragic thesis for both McCullers' life and her work. Haunted by a Christ who remained entombed, a twenty-one-year-old McCullers created an allegory in which numerous characters seek to work out their own salvation by relaying their individual fears to John Singer. Singer, a deaf mute, becomes a paralyzed Christ figure, so restricted by the expectations of others that he is fictionalized by them.

Only the author and the reader know Singer; Mick...