Understanding the short fiction of Carson McCullers /

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Bibliographic Details
Imprint:	Macon, Georgia : Mercer University Press, 2020. ©2020
Description:	xxi, 218 pages ; 24 cm.
Language:	English
Series:	The Carson McCullers series Carson McCullers series.
Subject:	McCullers, Carson, -- 1917-1967 -- Criticism and interpretation. McCullers, Carson, -- 1917-1967. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12412822

Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:	Graham-Bertolini, Alison, editor. Kayser, Casey, editor. Mercer University Press.
ISBN:	9780881467420 0881467421
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	"Understanding the Short Fiction of Carson McCullers uses diverse critical techniques to identify how McCullers's short fiction engages with the modern world and contemporary audiences. While McCullers's longer work has received significant critical attention, her short fiction has not received the same treatment. This collection adds to analyses of McCullers's better-known stories as well as considers those that have received little or no critical attention. McCullers's writing maintains lasting appeal because it captures both the joy and sadness of humanity, especially the meaning we draw from connections with others and the pain of isolation when we find it difficult to cultivate these relationships in modern culture. While critical assessment of McCullers's work has more often focused on her concern with loneliness and belonging, this collection depicts an author who was deeply invested in the social and political state of the world. Her short fiction includes interrogations of class-based, racial, and ableist prejudice, disconcerting portrayals of the social and political anxiety surrounding the Second World War, satirical eviscerations of some of the most oppressive social norms of the mid-twentieth century, and bold suggestions that lesbian desire, queer relationships, and female autonomy have a valid place in American culture. Through her depictions of differently-abled, sexually nonconforming characters, as well as characters of various races and classes, her short fiction redefines notions of belonging in the modern social context. The chapters within this collection provide new scholarly avenues to McCullers and will compel readers to rethink their own responses to McCullers's shorter works"-- Book jacket.

Table of Contents:

Preface
"The Imagination Is Truer Than the Reality": A New Understanding of Carson McCullers's "Wunderkind"
Chewed Up and Spit Out: Consuming "The Jockey"
Carson McCullers and Orson Welles: Parables of Fascism
Carson McCullers's Musico-Psychological Narrative and American Democracy during World War II: "Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland" in the Sociopolitical Context
"He Clapped Alone": An Introduction to Carson McCullers's "Art and Mr. Mahoney"
Mental Illness, Alcoholism, and Echoes of the Joycean Epiphany McCullers's Short Fiction
"Mama Will Be all Right": The Complicated Madonna in McCullers's Short Fiction
Understanding McCullers and Mental Illness: "The Haunted Boy" and the Milledgeville Asylum
Illness and the Failure of Narrative in McCullers's "Breath from the Sky"
"The Design Is Fugal": The Many Voices and the Long Decade Composing Clock Without Hands
Whiteness and the Other in "The Aliens" and "Untitled Piece"
Current of Music in McCullers's Short Fiction
Notes on Contributors
Index

Understanding the short fiction of Carson McCullers /

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