Gendered Construction Of Southern Gothicism In The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter And Absalom,Absalom!:A Comparative Study

The American South,benefiting from its unique historical and geographical features,is a fecund ground for breeding the Southern Gothic,which flourished in the Southern Renaissance as a peculiar genre in American literature. Southern Gothic has its unique style,portraying grotesque characters and prominent gothic themes, in order to show specific cultural characteristics in the South, to criticize the inhumanity and immorality in the temporal society,and to enlighten readers to take warning and thinking. Both Carson McCullers and William Faulkner are outstanding Southern Gothic writers.The contributions two writers make are exceedingly remarkable, by utilizing gothic to disclose social evils. Therefore, their works have aroused intense critical attention since publication, and even up to now, they continually attract eyeballs. This thesis aims to interpret McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! in the view of how authors' gender difference influences the construction of Southern Gothicism in works.By means of the comparison of respective Southern Gothic grotesques and themes portrayed by two gendered writers who grew up in the Deep South, this thesis manages to expound that McCullers and Faulkner all tend to reveal the complex and hideous southern social reality and to present their sincere concerns and sympathies to the southern people.