The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Themes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 70 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Themes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 70 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
This section contains 1,155 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Study Guide

Strength and Weakness

Very early in the book Biff Brannon announces to his wife, "I like freaks." Her response is "I reckon you ought to, Mister Brannon—being as you're one yourself." What Biff has in mind is the affinity he has for the struggling underdog, or, as the book puts it later, "a special feeling for sick people and cripples." Although Brannon himself is physically healthy, his connection to the physically deformed is an indication of the weakness that he sees within himself, a weakness that shows itself in his inability to connect to his wife when she is alive and is even more pronounced in his withdrawal from society after her death. The other main characters display signs of social weakness that range from the obvious to the sublime. Mick Kelly, the only female in the group, is a young girl, wielding no real authority but burdened...

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This section contains 1,155 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Study Guide
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The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.