ALLEGORY AND THE MODERN SOUTHERN NOVEL (FAULKNER, O'CONNOR, MCCULLERS, CHRIST SYMBOL, CALVINISM)

The Southern novels which comprise this study reveal characters who are aware of their human frailty and who ask forgiveness for something they often are unable to define. "Allegory and the Modern Southern Novel" traces the fictional lives of Haze Motes (Wise Blood), John Singer (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter), Ike McCaslin (Go Down, Moses), and Gail Hightower (Light In August) as they seek understanding in spite of their confusion and the apparent absence of God. Through allegory, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, and William Faulkner create characters who are larger than life, for all four main characters become symbols in a fictional representation of life.; My reading of Wise Blood, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, Go Down, Moses, and Light In August, as well as other works such as A Fable (Faulkner), All The King's Men (Robert Penn Warren), and To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee), indicates that the literature of the modern South relies profoundly upon Christian imagery and the Old Testament view of man and God; these Southern novels, therefore, bear examination in a modern world literature characterized by skepticism and suspicion of creeds and traditional faiths. While the study obviously will concern American literature, Henrik Ibsen, D. H. Lawrence, Franz Kafka, and others will be cited for their contributions to the development of modern allegory.; Chapter I reveals the thread which links Puritan literature in early America with nineteenth-century American literature and later with the Southern world view. Chapter II reveals the problems encountered since the nineteenth century in defining allegory and indicates the inevitability of the Christ symbol in modern Southern fiction. Chapters III and IV provide textual analyses of the failed messiahs who testify to a cultural longing for redemption in the South.