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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Miss Lonelyhearts, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Religion and Morality in Modern Society
The Illusion of the American Dream
The Limitations of Love
Isolation and Madness
Summary
Analysis
After leaving work, Miss Lonelyhearts heads to Delehanty’s speakeasy to grab a drink. As he walks through a small park, he remarks to himself that there are no flowers. He imagines using his column to tell his unhappy letter-writers to water the soil with their tears, but instead of laughing at his own joke, he feels fatigued and pauses to sit on a park bench. Upon finally arriving at Delehanty’s speakeasy, Miss Lonelyhearts looks around for Shrike and is grateful to not see him.
As Miss Lonelyhearts tries and fails to find humor in his circumstances, he demonstrates that he’s become different—and isolated—from his colleagues, like Shrike, who don’t sympathize with the New Yorkers who write to their advice column asking for help. Although Miss Lonelyhearts is used to relying on humor to get him through his job, he’s realized that people’s pain isn’t something he can joke about anymore. His general attitude and fear of running into Shrike at the speakeasy also suggest that Miss Lonelyhearts’s job is beginning to pose a significant amount of stress for him, and he feels haunted by figures like Shrike.
Themes
Shrike appears as Miss Lonelyhearts nurses a third drink and makes fun of his employee for brooding. Shrike jokes around and begins to speak inappropriately about women, causing Miss Lonelyhearts to make an annoyed face. At that, Shrike comments that Jesus Christ must be Miss Lonelyhearts’s “only sweetheart.” Shrike then introduces Miss Lonelyhearts to a young woman named Miss Farkis. Shrike launches into an impassioned sermon about religion, though it’s largely nonsensical as he calls himself a “great saint” and proclaims that taxidermy isn’t a religion. Whenever Miss Farkis laughs, Shrike raises his fist as though he’s about to hit her. When Miss Farkis pulls away, Shrike caresses her instead.
In addition to demonstrating his ineptitude as a boss, Shrike’s actions in the speakeasy underscore that he’s—to put it simply—a strange and even violent character. His actions and speech are purposefully difficult to predict, and it’s important to note that Shrike is a satirical character who serves as a foil to Miss Lonelyhearts. Unlike Miss Lonelyhearts, who claims to love Jesus and feels burdened by those who reach out to him for help, the apathetic, comical, yet violent Shrike represents a callous outlook on Depression-era New York, during which the novella takes place.
Themes
