Language and Responsibility: The Failure of Discourse in Carson McCuller’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

While I really enjoyed the essay and I think it added another dimension to my reading of the text and makes me want to read on faster, I am left a little bit confused as well. It’s a nice essay but I think its going to take me some more time to mull it over in order to feel like I understand it better. Here are my disjointed thoughts and feeling on it as of now:

When Bradshaw is explaining the totalizing tendencies of the characters in the novel, he says: “Each individual, in private visits with Singer, had totalized him to such an extent that it is only possible for them to identify him as an extension of their individual Self” and I’m left wondering if he is suggesting that all people natural tendency to totalize others into understandable levels, or just the characters in this novel who are plagued with loneliness as a result of their isolating totalization of Singer. In other words, is Bradshaw arguing that people who succumb to totalizing another into an extension of the Self are bound to become lonely and isolated? Moreover, how does the concept of the Face fit into Bradshaw’s argument? He says, “For Levinas the face is not a material representation of the Other’s presence; instead it represents integral difference between the Self and the Other which cannot be conceptualized. Rather than identify this difference as physical Levinas suggests this relationship depends upon a recognition of the Face- a deeper, more essential manifestation of the Other’s difference from the Self.” If every Other has a face that demands discourse, is it the Other who is suffering, or the Self? I’m confused..

Apart from all of my confusion, I loved the way the author went into detailed analysis of each character and how his in-depth discussion ended in a conclusion of the “hierarchical relationship” of Singer ‘s dependence on Antonopoulos and the other’s dependence on Singer. But if all of the characters, including Singer, look to totalize someone who cannot respond to them, maybe Bradshaw’s message (or McCullers!) lies in the destructive tendencies influenced by language. If language didn’t exist for Singer to have a one-sided conversation with Antonopoulos, and for the others to have a one-sided conversation with Singer, then maybe their tendency to totalize the Other would lessen and the terrible loneliness would therefore lessen or be gone entirely. So maybe the argument is against language?

And I'm sorry this is a few minutes late, I got a little excited with that last bit