Lonely Sing

Because of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers aroused a sensation for South American literature when she was23years old. People not only showed great interest in its "spiritual isolation" theme, but also paid special attention to its fugue structure. She was dedicated to being a pianist instead of devoting herself into literary before13years old. Music became his companion and had great influence on her and her works.On one side, McCullers absorbed profound musical literacy from the good musical education she received when she was young. Her mother’s passion for music brought the original enlightenment for her; piano lessons taught by Mary Tucker not only inspired the "we of us" theme, but also improved her novel structure. On the other side, McCullers was very close to the current American artists. At the7th of Alameda Avenue and Yaddo, she got acquaintance with a lot of artists from all over the world. Music, painting and literature are their constant topics. The most obvious proof of music being a part of McCullers’ novels is the characterization. Many commentators are concerned about freak, but few noticed the characters deeply fascinated by music, such as Mick, Marvin Marcy, Mrs Schilinsky. Though McCullers spent different length of depiction on them, they still constituted a powerful group and their common nature is music. Besides, McCullers was good at depicting soundscape. These sounds came from the nature, the instrument or the inner side of human heart, which makes the novel more expressive. Different kinds of soundscape not only reflect a specific time and space, provide suitable atmosphere for the novel, but also reflect the characters’emotion.In addition, the special artistic form of McCullers’ novel owes a lot to the musical skills. McCullers not only try to use leitmotiv to refer to a person, but also a symbol as an abstract concept of time and space. Using for reference of counterpoint and fugue makes a perfect unity of the theme and structure of the novel. And the reasonable way of dealing with the relationship between narrative time and story time makes the novel form the inner rhythm. Analyzing her novels, we can find that these skills are not decorative but perfectly combined with what she wanted to express.With a good command of music knowledge, Carson McCullers had created a lot of works which have unique charm. Besides "political" and "doctrine", music made her works poetic and lyrical.