The Heart A Lonely Hunter Analysis

Capitalism is seen in economies all around the world, viewed as a system to control wealth. However, many believe that capitalism favors the wealthy and exploits the poor. Revolutionaries argue that those in poverty are forced to their indigence by their own exploitation. In The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, a novel by Carson McCullers, the town the characters inhabit is plagued by poverty and socioeconomic discrimination. Jake Blount is disturbed by how the wealthy are capable of treating the poor as if they are disposable resources. He is constantly baffled by the lack of action the poor take. Through incognizant diction and figurative language, McCullers portrays the townspeople as ignorant to imply how a corrupted distribution of wealth and …show more content…
Built with far less attention to needs than sties for pigs” (298). Through this metaphor, less care is afforded to the needs of the poor than even cattle. Their needs are ignored and bypassed, as though they are less than animals. Blount even comments how “pigs are valuable and men are not” (298). They are exploited; utilized for work, mistreated, and disposed of once they are no longer of value. McCullers also utilizes a simile to illustrate how the impoverished population is incapable of escaping from their poverty because they are confined to a corrupted cycle once they are impoverished by their blue collar occupations. Blount determines that “they are held down the same as if they had on chains” (299). The simile of being held down by chains is symbolic of socioeconomic discrimination, as one cannot be successful if they are constantly being exploited by the rich. Despite this cycle of poverty, McCullers depicts through incognizant diction, that the true cause of this exploitation is the poor’s oblivion. Blount describes how the impoverished have been misinformed of the inequality of wealth. Blount depicts the poor’s oblivion through terms such as, the truth has been hidden, poisonous lies so they