On The Subversion Of The Traditional Southern Family Romance And Reconstruction Of The Real South In McCullers's Four Novels

Carson McCullers(1917-1967) is a famous American writer in the 20th century. During her prolific lifetime, she has finished five novels, a novella, two plays, twenty short stories, about two dozen nonfiction pieces, a book of children's verse, and a handful of poems. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship twice, in 1942 and in 1946; the New York Drama Critics'Circle Award and a Gold Medal by the Theatre Club, Inc. in 1950.This thesis is intended to analyze the subversion in McCullers'four novels: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The Ballad of the Sad Café, the Member of Wedding, and Reflections in a Golden Eye and to discuss McCullers's reconstruction of the real Southern society.This thesis consists of five chapters. The fist chapter is an introduction focusing on Carson McCullers's life experience and works, the literature review of her books as well as the theoretical framework to be applied in this thesis, namely Deconstruction, feminism and Bakhtin's carnivalization poetics.From Chapter Two to Chapter Four is the main body of the thesis. Chapter Two is endeavored to identify the subversion of the Southern traditional women image in McCullers four novels by analyzing women characters which are different from the traditional fairy tale protagonists in terms of the deconstructive criticism and feminist criticism theories. Chapter Three is meant to prove the subversion of the family image in the Southern society by comparing the images created in the traditional patriarchal society and those created in the McCullers's novels. Chapter Four focuses on the rebuilding of the Southern world by resorting to the Bakhtin's carnivalization theory.Chapter Five is the conclusion in which the author of this thesis points out that in her four novels, Carson McCullers has demonstrated her subversion of the Southern family romance and her efforts of reconstructing a real Southern world. By analyzing her characters in the novels, the present author tries to highlight the author's concern for the Southern human condition, that is, her consistent concern for social equality and her yearning for the breaking of the fetters of the old Southern society so as to establish a real, united new South.