Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts and the Problem of Suffering

Abstract

Nathanael West's novella Miss Lonelyhearts, the harrowing story of a newspaper advice columnist who struggles to cope with the misery of his correspondents, illustrates the often dramatic challenge of locating meaning in human suffering. Situated in an implicitly nihilistic world in which neither transcendent nor immanent meaning can be taken for granted, the story raises vexing questions about how value and significance can arise and be nourished within a therapeutic relationship. The title character's doomed pursuit of faith and his inability to tolerate and acknowledge human suffering constitute a cautionary tale of spiritual failure in the broadest sense.

Whistler’s Mother: Devotional Center of Male Melancholic Religion

“…In their article on Miss Lonelyhearts, a novella by the American writer Nathaniel West published in 1933, the year that Whistler's Mother was touring the USA,Scheurich and Mullen (2006) note the absence of hope in the main character of the novella, a male advice columnist, whose "nihilistic" worldview is totally devoid of hope. 7 Despite these elaborate precautions, the painting was slightly damaged in transit from Kansas City to Baltimore, but this fact was withheld from journalists, and when the painting was returned to the Louvre, the damage was not disclosed to officials at the Louvre, and they apparently did not notice it.…”