Queer Studies On The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter And The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe

Carson McCullers is one of the most outstanding writers in the twentieth century American literature. She has a deep understanding in sex and gender marginal people. She begins to be famous with the publication of her first novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. She is also well known for her latter novel The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. Both novels are highly appreciated by the literary circle and demonstrate her opinion that sex and gender are uncertain performance, and sex and gender marginal people also have the right to live with freedom and dignity.As a new important branch of post-modernism and post-feminism, queer theory focuses on marginal, non-mainstream groups, questions conventional heterosexual hegemony and challenges the conventional binary traditions. Advocating individual freedom, queer theory respects the diversity of human personalities and values the construction of a harmonious society without prejudice and discrimination.This thesis attempts to interpret The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe from the perspective of queer theory through the analyses of the leading characters and the major themes in both texts to show how the prescribed binary gender traditions have harmed the development of individual personalities and appeal to people for admitting the variety of sex and gender. This thesis is composed of four parts which include six chapters: the introduction, the theoretical foundation, the main chapters and the conclusion. Chapter One is a general introduction to Carson McCullers, the literary review of her works and the similarities as well as differences between The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. McCullers’ personal experiences result in her confusion about sex and gender which are reflected in her novels. Chapter Two is the theoretical foundation of the whole thesis. This chapter begins with the origin of queer theory and then displays its major characteristics as well as its development and its application in literary criticism. Queer theory questions the heterosexual/homosexual and male/female binary traditions which depress people, encourages people to live freely and aims at construction of a harmonious society without prejudice and discrimination. Chapter Three and Chapter Four are detailed analyses of the six leading characters in the two novels The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe on the basis of queer theory. Through the analyses of the leading characters, this thesis explores the connection of the novels with queer theory. Singer’s and Lymon’s homosexual tendency, Biff’s and Marvin’s effeminate quality and Mick’s and Amelia’s androgynous personality all represent queer theory’s opposition to the heterosexual/homosexual and male/female binary traditions and elimination of prejudice and discrimination. Chapter Five explores the major themes in both novels on the basis of queer theory. Through analyzing the major themes, this thesis shows how the binary traditions prevent people from achieving freedom, appeals people to admit the variety of sex and gender and enables them to live in a harmonious society. Chapter Six, the concluding part, emphasizes the main points of this thesis and discusses the limitation as well as the suggestion of this thesis.