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Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers. Literary Genius. Southern Gothic.

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Carson McCullers

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  1. Carson McCullers Literary Genius

  2. Southern Gothic • Southern SpunkSouthern gothic writers leverage the details of the American South—the lonely plantations, aging Southern belles, dusty downtowns, dilapidated slave quarters, Spanish moss and Southern charm—to bring life to their slice of history. Steeped in folklore, oral history, suspense and local color, southern gothic is first popularized by 19th-Century short story masters Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ambrose Bierce. In the 1920s and 30s, William Faulkner makes the genre popular again with his heartbreaking views of life in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, depicted with stunning detail in books like The Sound and the Fury, Light in August and Absalom, Absalom!Read more: http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Southern-Gothic-Distinguising-Features#ixzz1ex4amBuH

  3. Southern Gothic • Faulkner's towns burst with the rage of Civil War defeat and slave revolt. His characters cry the tears of a misbegotten people struggling to make sense of a world that has moved on without them. Family and personal traditions are replaced by strife and confusion. It all makes for powerful literature. After the depression, Faulkner is joined by a host of other talented writers, among them Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy and Carson McCullers. Read more: http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Southern-Gothic-Distinguising-Features#ixzz1ex4mcVbs

  4. Characters of Southern Gothic • One of the defining features of southern gothic is the cast of off-kilter characters, many of whom are "not right in the head." The genre is riddled with many broken bodies, and even more broken souls. When southern gothic authors examine the human condition, they see the potential to do harm. Morality is in question for many characters. A major theme for southern gothic writers hinges on innocence, and the innocent's place in the world—where they are often asked to act as redeemer. Faulkner's innocent is the mentally handicapped Benji from The Sound and the Fury; Carson McCullers the deaf-mute John Singer. But this is still a genre of love and loss. In the end, purity of heart rarely overpowers desperation. If society hangs in the balance of an idiot's mind or on the words of a deaf-mute, we are all in trouble. Read more: http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Southern-Gothic-Distinguising-Features#ixzz1ex4vBpEF

  5. The Ladies Have Their Say • Southern gothic did not discriminate, nurturing some of the most talented female writers of this century. Flannery O'Connor's stories, especially "A Good Man is Hard to Find," provide an unfettered look at moral ambiguity. Eudora Welty brings to life women powered by their desires on one hand, their obligations on the other in novels like The Optimist's Daughter and Delta Wedding. Carson McCullers, one of the most popular writers to ever bless the genre, tells the real story of people on the outside of society, and ultimately the longing to find connection in this world. Read more: http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Southern-Gothic-Distinguising-Features#ixzz1ex5ruEIi

  6. Carson McCullers: A Literary Life 1917 Born Lula Carson Smith on February 19 in the heart of downtown Columbus, Georgia; first child of Vera Marguerite Waters Smith and husband Lamar, owner of a jewelry store.1923Lula Carson enters her first grade class at the Sixteenth Street School in Columbus. At the end of the year, her maternal grandmother and namesake Lula Caroline Carson Waters (with whom her family lives) dies. 1926Age 10, Lula Carson—who at this point has proven to have a great affinity for music—begins piano lessons with Mrs. Kendrick Kierce. She studies with this teacher for the next four years.1930At the beginning of her eighth grade school year, Carson drops the use of Lula from her name. This year, she begins piano studies with Mrs. Mary Tucker and decides that she will become a concert pianist.1932During her senior year in high school, Carson is stricken with a severe case of rheumatic fever, which is incorrectly diagnosed. This illness in childhood is later thought to contribute to her lifelong battle with debilitating maladies and an early death. While recuperating from her illness, Carson begins to read many major Russian, British and American writers and to consider changing her vocation from musician to writer.

  7. 1934At age 17, Carson sails from Savannah to New York City after her father sold her grandmother's ring so she could attend school. She promptly loses her small family fortune on the subway, and she is forced to take odd jobs to survive. She also has plans to pursue her secret ambition to write, and quickly begins to study writing at Columbia and New York University and to fall in with a very literary crowd in New York. She continues to pursue her studies for the next two years.1936Back in Columbus, GA in the fall of 1936 to recover from a difficult respiratory infection, Carson is bedridden for several months and uses the time to begin her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Her first story, "Wunderkind," is written and published at the end of the year by Story magazine.1937In September, Carson marries James Reeves McCullers, Jr., a native of Wetumpka, Alabama whom she met when he was stationed in the army at Fort Benning near her hometown. The marriage is simultaneously the most supportive and destructive relationship in her life, and is from its beginning plagued by the partners' shared difficulty with alcoholism, their sexual ambivalence and the tension caused by Reeves' envy of Carson's writing abilities. The couple, who have a very rocky relationship throughout their years together, split and reconcile several times—including a divorce in 1941 followed by a remarriage in 1945. 1940The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, her masterpiece (originally titled The Mute), dedicated to her husband and parents, is published to rave reviews from literary critics and readers alike. She returns to New York City without Reeves and takes up with an artistic crowd that includes George Davis (literary editor of Harper's Bazaar), poet W. H. Auden, writers Oliver Smith and Richard Wright and performer Gypsy Rose Lee.Read more: http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Timeline-of-Carson-McCullers-Life-Success-and-Works_1/2#ixzz1ex6

  8. Carson and her husband, Reeves

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