/lit/ - Literature

>>20136112
You could join my super friendly book club of people who actually read books and talk about books.

https://discord.gg/VGwXdWVSYX

>>20030176
Idk it is just a very pretty picture. The artist is @cogum3li on insta.

>>19160346
The Magus because its like a dreamy optical illusion, maybe Alice in Wonderland as well

>>19160383
Paradise lost cus apple

>>19147799
Coloured pencils I think. The artist is @kinokorp on instagram she has a lot of really pretty drawings.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is an allegory without meaning; the characters function symbolically but stand in front of nothing. It would redundant and misdirected to look at the social issues for meaning because there is no meaning to be found, McCullers was writing on the personal micro level and not the macro. A reading of the novel should not revolve around religion, race or politics.

Looking into religion in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter I have found that there is nothing truly concrete to hold onto. I have seen critics tear it down for having rough and unfinished subplots, the religious aspect being one of them, but I reject this because McCullers was not attempting proselytising anyone to any religion or ideology, she was showing how the climate of the modern world, pushing religion and ideology constantly poisons the soul.

The quotation I have seen most often picked apart and misinterpreted by critics is Singer’s dream of Antonapoulos:

>Out of the blackness of sleep a dream formed... He was naked and he fumbled with something that he held above his head and gazed at as though in prayer. He himself knelt halfway down the steps. He was naked and cold and he could not take his eyes from Antonapoulos and the thing he held above him. Behind him on the ground he felt the one with the mustache and the girl and the black man and the last one. They knelt naked and he felt their eyes on him. And behind them were uncounted crowds of kneeling people in the darkness.

The immediate interpretation would be to see pyramidal structure; Antonapoulos at the apex representing God, Singer then a level lower representing Christ and finally another level lower with the supporting characters, Mick, Biff, Copeland and Blount who would most likely be disciples or followers of Singer. However, this interpretation falls apart with the object Antonapoulos ‘held above his head and gazed at as though in prayer’. If this was a cross that would invalidate Singer as the Christ like figure, as well as the ‘prayer’ like stance, which if he were really a God at the apex he would have no one or nothing to pray to.