An Unheimlich Wanderer: Mick’s Spatial Anxiety in Carson McCullers’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Abstract

ABSTRACT Space and anxiety are intimately intertwined, as is reflected in Carson McCullers’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. This article focuses on one of the main characters Mick Kelly, who, throughout the novel, is beset by spatial anxiety which in essence stems from the unhomely feeling. It firstly defines the German terms, namely heimlich and unheimlich, examining the way in which spatial anxiety is represented in and out of the house. Furthermore, the possible causes pertaining to politics in the house and the conflict between private and public spaces are determined. It is worth nothing that spatial anxiety is a universal experience of humans, which resonates with Lukács’s “transcendental homelessness.” By explicating Mick’s various strategies for dispelling spatial anxiety, it is concluded that mapping, in the metaphorical form of projecting and wandering, constitutes an effective way to cope with spatial anxiety, when a sense of disorientation permeates the modern labyrinthine world.