Study Questions
What importance does music play in the novel?
What various roles does John Singer play in the text?
What role does violence play in the novel? Does it have any greater significance?
Explain the significance of the title The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
Is it important that the novel is set in the South, or could the story have taken place anywhere? Use examples to explain.
Choose any two of the five main characters and compare and contrast them. In what ways are they similar? In what ways do they differ? How do these similarities and differences operate within the novel as a whole?
Do you think the lives of the main characters in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter would change drastically if Singer did not commit suicide at the end of Part Two? Why or why not?
