The Heart is a Lonely Hunter gives us a day, a year, and then a day in the lives of five distinct characters: Singer, Mick, Brannon, Blount and Dr. Copeland. Their lives are shot through with frustration and discouragement and the intense privacy of their inner lives gives the reader the impression that they are isolated, lonely beings. However, the frustrations they experience are most often a product of their very passionate attempts to follow their desires or convictions. Moreover, McCullers employs several devices which work against the sense of loneliness and which lend a tenuous sense of unity, an echoing of sensibility, to the discrete voices of the characters.