Introduction

A.Literature Review
1. Research Abroad
Carson McCullers is one of the most brilliant writer in 20th century America. In 1939, she finished her first novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. It is this novel that launched a 22 years old girl to fame. As early as the 1940s, the western literary world began the criticism about Carson McCullers and her works. At that time, a large majority of the researches used the method of New Criticism. Through a close reading of the texts, they tried to analyze the internal structure and the poetic character of her works. Those new critics did not pay attention to the connection between the novel and the personal experience of the author. And they did not find the profound social significance behind …show more content…
A signifier is a form which the sign takes, and the signified is the concepts it represents. Saussure claims that “A sign must have both a signifier and a signified. You cannot have a totally meaningless signifier or a completely formless signified” (101). Within the Saussurean model, the relationship between signifier and signified is fixed. For example, if the sign is the word “tree”, then the signifier is the four letters written or pronounced which composed the word, and the signifier is the tree you pictured in your mind. It can never be referred to as flowers or grasses. A Tree is only a tree, because we perceive it to be different from flowers or grasses. “We are able to perceive those components...only because we perceive their difference from one another” (Tyson 213). According to structuralists like Saussure, “the human mind perceives difference most readily in terms of opposites, which they call binary oppositions” (Tyson 213). However, Jacque Derrida suggests an attempt to transcend those binaries established by the structuralists. He argues that the relationship between the signifier and the signified is not fixed. Take the example of a tree again. Deconstruction asks us to look at the ambiguity of words. A tree is surely not a flower, but it can refer to both a willow tree and a pine tree. If we know that it is a pine tree, we …show more content…
John Singer is the best embodiment of this solution. Despite the fact that Singer is a deaf-mute, who can only read lips, he is an excellent listener. The reason why everybody likes to talk to Singer is that Singer respects others’ right of speaking, and strives to show sympathy to their problems. McCullers firmly believes that, as long as we could show sympathy to others, we can communicate and understand each other without using any language. However, communication is never the job of one person. Singer also needs a listener, but when his listener Antonopoulous died, his only choice is to commit suicide. Singer’s death illustrates the pathetic end of being