An Approach To A Curtain Of Green And Other Stories From The Perspective Of Abnormal Psychology

Eudora Welty, a distinguished American Southern female writer, is well known for her short stories. As Welty’s first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green and Other Stories (heretofore referred to simply as A Curtain of Green) enjoys high reputation. All set in Southern small towns, those stories focus on exploring the inner worlds of the characters. Relying on her exceptional perception and superb techniques, Welty vividly portrays a series of Southern grotesques with aberrant, distorted psychologies. Those stories depict an abnormal world of various grotesques with odd behaviors and absurd speeches, who lead preposterous spiritual lives that are confronted with violence, diseases, failures or unnatural death. Many of the characters in A Curtain of Green demonstrate the tragedy of the psychopathic eccentrics:the threatened sense of security, the destroyed psychological defense mechanism and the unfulfilled self-identity result in various psychological disorders such as mood disorder, anxiety disorder, personality disorder, neurosis and even schizophrenia. It seems that abnormal psychology will be of considerable help in deciphering the mentalities of those aberrant grotesques.Therefore, this thesis aims to conduct a diagnostic interpretation of the characters of A Curtain of Green-some of whom are typical psychopathic eccentrics-from the perspective of abnormal psychology. The thesis mainly consists of five parts.Chapter One is an introductory part which sets forth the issue, purpose and methodology of the present study. It also includes a brief biographical sketch of Eudora Welty and a survey of previous criticism of her works, especially A Curtain of Green. Chapter Two explains the methodology of the present study. It discusses the possibility of interpreting the Southern grotesques in Welty’s stories from the perspective of abnormal psychology, analyzes her motivation for writing about such aberrant characters, and introduces the basic concepts of abnormal psychology.Chapter Three conducts a comparative study of abnormal psychology and literature for the anomalous, perverted and numb characters in A Curtain of Green. It analyzes those characters against the clinical studies of abnormal psychology on patients suffering from psychosomatic disorder, posttraumatic disorder, schizoid personality disorder, and other psychological disorders.Chapter Four analyzes Welty’s unique and effective techniques in portraying the abnormal psychology of the Southern grotesques. The techniques include the selection of places, the description of natural environments and the use of symbolism.In conclusion, Chapter Five summarizes the findings of the third and fourth chapters. It also suggests issues for future studies on A Curtain of Green in terms of abnormal psychology.