I’m a humanity lover.
According to Ms. Lonelyhearts, his fiancée was a “bitch” for assuming that those who act “viciously” were “sick.” The list of the sick included: “wife-tortures, rapers of small children” and other nasty people. She believed in “medicine” when Ms. Lonelyhearts believed in “morality.” He didn’t need her “damned aspirin,” for it was useless, nothing could treat his “Christ complex.” Ms. Lonelyhearts was “a humanity lover.” He wanted to save “all the broken bastards,” give them the sense of life, bring the light in the darkness. He adored Christ, wanted to be like Christ, the problem was that he lost his faith in Him himself.
For the first time in his life, he is forced to examine the values by which he lives.
Before he became Ms. Lonelyhearts, the protagonist had never questioned his beliefs, but that job turned his world upside-down. He had considered this job “a joke,” but after several months at it, “the joke” began “to escape him.” The majority of the letters were “profoundly humble pleas for moral and spiritual advice.” What was more important, the correspondents took him “seriously.” He was “forced to examine the values” by which he lived. That examination showed that he was “the victim of a joke and not its predator.” So much pain, despair, unhappiness and injustice destroyed his faith and – consequently – him.
Men have always fought their misery with their dreams.
Why was faith so important for Ms. Lonelyhearts? The answer was rather obvious, for it was a base of his life. He was happy to be a good Christian, he was happy not to notice all the dirt and suffering of our world. Ms. Lonelyhearts was forced to open his eyes! All those letters – each filled with pleas for help, advice and guidance – made him see how filthy, greedy, cruel and unforgiving people could be, how terrible a life could be. The thing that made his life particularly bad was the fact that he “was capable of dreaming the Christ dream,” but he had “failed at it.” His dreams were useless, there was no way of fighting his misery.
