Symbolism In Miss Lonelyhearts

Miss Lonelyhearts struggles to come to grips with his Christian faith, finding it an insufficient solution to worldly problems. Willie Shrike, his editor, always succeeds in dragging him back into a depression. Because Miss Lonelyhearts is unable to find answers, he acts out violently and loudly. He fills his existence with constant distractions and noise. He avoids his problems and tries to put order into his life superficially. After a fever forces him to be alone with his thoughts, Miss Lonelyhearts finally finds his true meaning: to be a savior, a Christ-like figure, destined to lead people to attain that same enlightenment.
His Christian faith is very prominent in his life. Miss Lonelyhearts preaches Christianity in his advice column and has a crucifix right in front of his bed. But he seems put off by it. “Christ was the answer, but if he did not want to get sick, he had to stay away from the Christ business”(West, 3). He says Christ is the answer to the world’s problems but struggles to apply the same in his own life. Miss Lonelyhearts is conflicted when he doesn’t accept Christ in his life and turns to immoralities to try to relieve his frustration at the world and its sufferings. He is a failed Christ-like figure. It starts early when he and his friends fail to sacrifice a lamb. The lamb, the purest victim, is a clear symbol for Jesus, His failure to sacrifice the lamb foreshadows his future attempts to emulate Christ. He doesn’t find the answer that he wants, that
he accepts, in religion.
Met with suffering and oppression in the letters sent to him as well as in his own life, Miss Lonelyhearts acts out violently. He assaults an old man by twisting his arm and bullying him. He verbally abuses his fiancee, Betty, because he can’t relate to her. Betty is his only “light” in this world. She is wholesome and maternal. She could be compared to the character of Beatrice in Dante’s Divine Comedy, who guides the pilgrim through the darkness towards the light. Betty, likewise, is Miss Lonelyhearts’ guide, or at least tries to be, in trying to pull him away from the darkness of the “city troubles” and to the light of the “fresh and clean of the country”(32). But the similarities end there. Betty’s view of the world is very selective and only includes what she wants to see, that being what is pleasant and good, and ignores what she doesn’t want to see, that being suffering and gloom. She thinks that a merely external change of environment will cure his internal issues. He is unhappy with her and looks to distance himself from these problems by resorting to base pleasures. Miss Lonelyhearts starts staying out at bars and becoming inebriated every night, often getting into fights and other acts of violence. He also has sexual affairs; he tries to sleep with Mrs. Mary Shrike but she denies him. Then he turns to Mrs. Fay Doyle, an admirer of his column, but gets himself into deeper trouble by getting involved with her. As it turns out, Mrs. Doyle is unhappy with her husband, who is disabled, and is struggling to provide for her child whom she had with another man. These pleasures don’t solve his problems and he becomes deeply depressive.
Miss Lonelyhearts then attempts to force order into his disorderly life. He refers to himself as a “rock”. “The rock was a solidification of his feeling, his conscience, his sense of reality, his self-knowledge”(56). A rock is a symbol of stability and steadiness, both of which he doesn’t have. It is also a name for St. Peter, whom Christ built His Church on. Miss Lonelyhearts wants to be like St. Peter, an apostle of Christ. But a rock is also hardened and unfeeling. He says he is strong against the assaults from Shrike but he has become callous as a result of being over-exposed to the miseries of the world and his depressive attitude towards it. When Betty announces her pregnancy, Miss Lonelyhearts is unmoved. “[The rock] was still there; neither laughter nor tears could affect the rock. It was oblivious to wind or rain”(55). Even after he and Betty discuss their future together, he remains indifferent. “He did not feel guilty. He did not feel.”(56).
Miss Lonelyhearts comes down with a fever and stays in bed for three days. This parallels the three days between Christ’s death and resurrection. During this time, he hallucinates attending a party thrown by Shrike in which Shrike had the other partiers figure out a solution to some of Miss Lonelyhearts’ letters. This party has a feel of the Last Supper in which Shrike, being Judas, “betrays” Miss Lonelyhearts by constantly mocking him and making a game out of these people’s very serious problems. Throughout the novella, he undermines Miss Lonelyhearts sincere attempts to find meaning in life with his cynicisms. Miss Lonelyhearts leaves the party and goes to his “light”, Betty. After the three days, he has a religious epiphany and is renewed with a great purpose to bring the life that he had ”resurrected” from to those who are suffering. He finds his meaning, his purpose of existence, as a savior, like Christ. “His heart was the one heart, the heart of God. And his brain was likewise God’s”(57). Miss Lonelyhearts accepts fully what God wants and takes those needs as his own. He is set on curing the world of its sickness and starts with Mr. Doyle, who has come to take revenge on Miss Lonelyhearts and shoot him for consorting with his wife. Sent by God to perform this miracle, Miss Lonelyhearts runs out, filled with religious fervor. “He would embrace the cripple and the cripple would be made whole again, even as he, a spiritual cripple, had been made whole”(57). He takes Doyle in his arms. the gun accidentally goes off, and the two men tumble down the stairs. It is assumed that Miss Lonelyhearts dies. He dies for the “sins” or sufferings of those who wrote their problems to him, for Doyle and Desperate and Sick-Of-It-All, just as Jesus died for the sins of mankind.
Miss Lonelyhearts initially fails as a Christ figure.
He finds religion to not be a viable solution to the sufferings of the world. Looking to other means, he releases his frustrations, through violence and decadence, but is still left with a hollow and depressive feeling in his soul. In the end, Miss Lonelyhearts has a revelation and he is made whole again in the grace of God. He finds his true meaning in life in being a savior, a Christ figure, destined to lead the masses to the light of
God.