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Carson McCullers was a Southern writer. She relocated to the north, and then lived mostly in Paris in the latter part of her life. Her most famous work is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which she wrote when she was just twenty three. About ten years later, she published another successful body of work, a novella and short stories, called The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.
I had read both these books many years ago, and found her works enigmatic and poetic. I just saw a film version of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, with a very intelligent performance by Allan Arkin as the deaf-mute John Singer, which explained many things.
The ending in the film and in the book are slightly different - by this I mean that the reasons for these disparate endings are slightly different. In the book, one gets the impression that Singer had an existential fallout, which was brewing for a long time. In the film, the director made it seem as though Singer was reacting to a visit gone wrong with his deaf-mute friend Spiros Antonapoulos, who had to be transferred to a mental institution after years of living with Singer.
I think people in general are afraid to confront existential fallouts. They want to give concrete "reasons" for drastic choices.
The young girl in the story, Mick, discovers classical music while listening to her rich friend practice the piano. Singer, who rents a room in Mick's family house, learns of this new-found interest, and buys several classical records so that Mick could come and listen to them.
This is how Singer made sense out of his life. He bought things for others, or got them out of trouble, or saved relationships by helping the various parties see their stubborn ways. It seemed, though, that no-one really listened to Singer, but all depended on his seemingly solid presence and kind "ear".
Mick said at one point that her loneliness goes away when she listens to music, and even when she remembers music. She says that Singer ought to find something like that to take his loneliness away.
Of course, that was ultimately Singer's problem. He couldn't find that thing to ease his emptiness, so he depended on people to make himself feel better: by giving them gifts, or his sympathetic ear, or just his time. But, they always disappoint him. Despite the many problems they come to him with, their lives return to normal after a little while, and they don't need him any more - for a while.
I think what Mick was telling him was to find something outside of himself. Because for all his generosity, he was quite stubborn about it. It is as though he had put himself on a pedestal, and expected his generosity to bear fruits - of friendship, of the defeat of loneliness, of gaining happiness. This generosity was part of his ego.
Mick, without realizing it, was telling Singer to let go of himself, and surrender to something bigger than himself, bigger than his ego. For her, it was music. Perhaps for Singer, it could have been God.
I think the book was more correct about Singer's final, drastic choice. The movie, probably having to deal with a fickle audience, gave a more "cause and effect" explanation for Singer's behavior. He treated his deaf-mute mentally deficient friend badly (only marginally so), the friend got sick (heartbroken?) and dies. Therefore Singer thought it was his fault.
Still, the film is closer to the truth than I give it credit for. How pompous of Singer to think that life (and death) revolved around him, so much so that he thought a friend died because of him?