ABSTRACT：As one of the most significant American writers of 20th century, Carson McCullers is a legendary person. In her short life, her novels and short stories are loved by everyone. Most of Carson McCullers’ works mainly explore the themes of loneliness, alienation and emotional isolation in Captialist society. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter which was published in 1940 is considered as her best work. In the novel, Carson McCullers presents a detailed description of the lives of the four characters: mute Singer, a marginalized mute bereft of voice; Mick, a girl with music dreams; Copeland, an idealistic black physician; Biff Brannon, a thoughtful observer. Through adopting Marx’s theory of alienation, this paper attempts to analyze the lonely and alienated state of the four characters, their predicament and the alienatied relationship between them based on the reality of the American South in the 1930s. The aim of this paper is to reveal that the Industrial Revolution raised the level of production but it has also distorted human nature, which has caused human’s self-alienation and the alienated relationship with others. And this paper also aims to reveal McCullers’s deep concern about the loneliness of human nature and alienated relationship in American capitalist society.
Key words: human nature; loneliness; alienation
中文摘要：作为20世纪美国文学的重要作家之一，卡森•麦卡勒斯是一个富有传奇色彩的人物。在她短暂的人生中，无论是长篇还是短篇作品，都受到大家的喜爱，其作品基本上都是探讨资本主义社会中人性的孤独，异化及情感隔绝的主题。出版于1940年的《心是孤独的猎手》被评论家们视为她最好的一部作品。在这部作品中，卡森·麦卡勒斯主要塑造了四个人物形象：边缘人哑巴辛格，充满音乐梦想的少女米克，理想主义的黑人医生考普兰德和生活旁观者比夫·布瑞农。本文借助马克思主义哲学中的相关异化理论，试从20世纪30年代美国南方的社会现实出发，分析四位主人翁孤独异化的生存状态和困境，以及他们之间的异化关系，从而揭示出工业革命带来生产水平提高的同时也扭曲了人性，从而导致人自我与他人的异化，也进一步揭示出小说作者对于美国资本主义社会中人性孤独，人与人之间异化关系的深切关注。
关键词：人性；孤独；异化
