What are the motifs in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers?

Race and racism is a motif. This novel was praised by critics, both black and white, for the clear and honest way it dealt with the problems blacks were subjected to. The issue of race is approached slowly and carefully at first. The first black characters, Willie and Portia, are introduced in their menial positions as, respectively, fry cook and maid. To modern readers, their patterns of speech, their dialect, may seem offensive or comical. When Dr. Copeland is introduced, he seems to fit another stock type: that of the black intellectual who resents the social rewards that have not been available to blacks and resents his own people for accepting their second-class citizenship.