Authors: Dr. Girisha D
Abstract: This essay addresses different themes which have the capacity to cause both men and women to suffer from a variety of ailments in Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts. A young newspaperman who writes a lonelyhearts column is the subject of the story. The anonymous reporter’s obsession is the inability to ease the readers’ pain when they come to him for guidance. Without the ethereal cloak of art, culture, or religion, the hero adopts a harsh, pragmatic, and mocking view of the world. His death is monstrously ironic. The incident reveals his self-deception, shattering his dream. A dead world that cannot be brought to life is evoked by the novel’s recurring theme of death. Based on his portrayal of the characters, West should not be considered a misogynist because he understands and forgives the people in the novel. They are all a part of the human misery that the West deeply empathises with.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17699644
