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Heart Is A Lonely Hunger Essay

Please do not shout" (McCullers 55). However, it should be noted that simply being sublimely articulate is no insurance that one can be understood. In the case of the African-American Dr. Copeland, his learning becomes a barrier between himself and others. Copeland left for the North to be educated, and returned to the South to teach and heal his people. However, Copeland is a remote man because of the way he uses his intelligence as a barrier between himself and others. When he argues about Marxism with Blount, he is so erudite that his fellow Marxist grows angry because he cannot understand him. Copeland throws a Christmas party for the African-American people of the town, but even he knows that no one will remember the impassioned speech he gives about racial injustice. "This is one of the commandments Karl Marx left us, 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,'" he intones, only to be asked if he is speaking of the Mark in the Bible (McCullers 189). Copeland's own children accept the roles they are forced into by racist white society, and Copeland is unable to...

Cruelly, the son of a doctor is beaten and loses his feet to infection because he is denied medical treatment. And finally, Copeland's own body is exhausted and betrays him, as he slowly succumbs to tuberculosis.
Copeland is isolated by his race and his intelligence and his illness, Singer by his handicap. These prisons are somewhat self-imposed, given Singer's foolish obsession with his deaf-mute friend who does not care about him, and Copeland's ineffective and at times patronizing method of connecting with his fellow African-Americans. Their unavoidable physical and social illnesses intensify these men's personal limitations, but also act as metaphors of how the other characters to varying degrees are self-obsessed with their own pain to the point that deeper communication and understanding is impossible -- race and disability make these divides more obvious, but they are not the only reason such divides exist.

Works Cited

McCullers, Carson. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004

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Works Cited

McCullers, Carson. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004
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