Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West
"Miss Lonelyhearts" is a novel by Nathanael West that serves as a profound critique of the disillusionment prevalent in twentieth-century America. The narrative centers on the character of Miss Lonelyhearts, a young male writer for a newspaper advice column, who becomes increasingly aware of the suffering expressed in the letters he receives. This awareness drives him to seek meaning and order in a chaotic world, ultimately highlighting the futility of the false promises offered by religion, nature, and media. The book's structure features brief chapters with illustrative titles, reflecting West's initial idea of presenting the story as a comic strip.
Themes of identity and the quest for control in a fragmented reality are central to the plot, with the Christ dream symbolizing a longing for compassion and redemption. The grotesque and nonhuman characteristics of the novel's diverse cast, such as the editor Shrike and the Doyle couple, reinforce the sense of alienation in modern life. Through imagery and symbolism, West explores the destructive nature of societal expectations and the violence that can arise from suppressed desires. Ultimately, "Miss Lonelyhearts" presents a stark depiction of a world where consciousness fails to transform wishes into reality, leaving characters grappling with their existential despair.
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Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West
First published: 1933
The Work
Generally considered Nathanael West’s masterpiece, Miss Lonelyhearts is an intense indictment of the false promises of twentieth century America. Originally, West had envisioned writing a novel in the form of a comic strip, and this idea is evident in the use of brief chapters with illustrative titles. The novel, as with all West’s novels, is concerned with identity through dreams. The Christ dream is a key theme in Miss Lonelyhearts.
As the novel opens, Miss Lonelyhearts, the young male writer of a newspaper advice column, can no longer ignore the misery of his correspondents and obsessively pursues some sort of control or order in life. The fraudulent guarantees and false dreams offered by religion, by nature, and by the media only lead to terrible destruction. Miss Lonelyhearts dies locked in an embrace with the disabled and impotent Doyle, one of his correspondents.
The grotesque characters in the novel are represented as nonhuman symbols. The editor Shrike’s name is that of the bird that kills its victims by spearing them on thorns. His name is also similar to the word “shriek.” Shrike’s endless caustic speeches impale Miss Lonelyhearts in his quest for Christ-like compassion. Shrike’s wife Mary is represented by breasts, but rather than nurturing, the breasts are teasing. Mary hides a medal in her cleavage and flaunts her breasts as she discusses her mother’s terrible death from breast cancer. Betty, Miss Lonelyhearts’ fiancée, is likened to nature and to a serene Buddha, but her calm innocence seems to invite violence. West writes that Betty is “like a kitten whose soft helplessness makes one ache to hurt it.”
The Doyles’ identity seems almost subhuman. Although Fay Doyle is associated with ocean imagery, she is more like some terrible beast from the sea. Her sexuality is terrifying; her thighs are likened to “two enormous grindstones.” Her destructive powers are further illustrated when she hits her husband, who is disabled, with a rolled-up newspaper as he is pretending to be a dog. Ultimately Fay drives Peter Doyle to murder in his attempt to regain his degraded masculinity.
Images of sensory deadness pervade the novel. This deadness defines the sickness of modern times. Miss Lonelyhearts takes place in a world where all suffer from the awareness that consciousness cannot convert wishes into desires. Mastery over chaotic life forces has been achieved through assault upon and inhibition of the senses. Miss Lonelyhearts shows how resistance to and self-defense against the absurd lead only to violence.
Bibliography
Andreach, Robert. “Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts: Between the Dead Pan and the Unborn Christ.” In Twentieth Century Interpretations of “Miss Lonelyhearts”: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas H. Jackson. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. Analyzes the Pan-Christ antagonism as the unifying principle of West’s novel and the central paradox of twentieth century life, in which paganism violates one’s conscience and Christianity violates one’s nature.
Barnard, Rita. “The Storyteller, the Novelist, and the Advice Columnist.” In The Great Depression and the Culture of Abundance. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Contextualizes Miss Lonelyhearts in the mass-media, commercial culture of the 1930’s, and discusses West’s critique of popular art forms.
Light, James F. Nathanael West: An Interpretive Study. 2d ed. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1971. Claims West’s compassion for people whose dreams have been betrayed fuses form and content in Miss Lonelyhearts. Describes the novel’s imagistic style, and briefly summarizes its critical reception.
Martin, Jay. Nathanael West: The Art of His Life. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970. An indispensable biographical and critical source. Asserts that the dominant issue in West’s life and art is the loss of value. An appendix documents West’s screenwriting career.
Martin, Jay. Nathanael West: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. In addition to West’s own essays and reviews by his contemporaries, this volume includes essays that study textual revisions and religious experience in Miss Lonelyhearts.