Southern Writers

Carson McCullers

• (1917 - 1967)

• She was born in Georgia.

• She suffered from many illnesses and alcoholism.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter tells the story of Mr. Singer, who is deaf-mute.

(He cannot hear or speak)

• At the beginning of the story he lives with another deaf-mute man named Antonapoulos.

Question:

• Why do Mr. Singer and Antonapoulos stop living together?

Why do they stop living together?

• Antonapoulos begins bahaving strangely.

• He drinks too much.

• His cousin, who he works for, sends him away to a mental institution (sanatorium)

• Being separated from Antonapoulos is devastating for Mr. Singer.

Mr. Singer

• Now Mr. Singer is alone, he moves into a boarding house.

• As time goes by, four different people who live in the town start to visit his room.

Mr. Singer’s Friends

1) Jake Blount

• Jake Blount is an alcoholic.

• He has newly arrived in town and gets a job at the fairground.

• He believes that he is a religious prophet of some kind and desperately wants to share his message with others.

Mr Singer’s Friends

2) Mick Kelly

• Mick Kelly is a 14 year old girl.

• She has a large family and her parents run a boarding house.

• Mr. Singer lives in this boarding house.

Question:

• How does Mick Kelly feel about music?

Music

• Music is Mick’s favourite thing. At night she goes to the garden of a house where the radio is always playing.

• She listens through the window and hears Beethoven.

Mr. Singer’s Friends

3) Dr.Copeland

• Dr. Copeland is a black medical doctor.

• He is a clever, idealistic man, but he has a lot of difficulty relating to people.

• He has a lot of trouble talking to his children.

Question

• What does Dr.Copeland believe in?

Communism

• Dr. Copeland tries to explain Karl Marx to the people at his Christmas party.

• He is a doctor and most of the other black men and women have a lot of respect for him.

• He feels like black people in particular can benefit from communism, because they are the most disenfranchised.

Mr. Singer’s Friends

4) Biff Brannon

• Biff Brannon is the owner of the bar in the town.

• At the start of the story his wife dies.

• But even before she dies, he feels lonely and unable to talk to her properly.

Question:

• What do these four people like so much about Mr. Singer?

Mr. Singer

• Mr.Singer’s friends start to rely on Mr. Singer.

• They each see something in him that they need.

• He is clearly a kind and patient man, but because he never speaks, his 4 visitors can project what they need from a friend onto him.

Secrets

• Jake Blount, Mick Kelly, Dr.Copeland and Biff Brannon each have secret feelings that they are unsure how to communicate.

• This book suggests that most people have secrets that they find hard to share.

Lonliness

• One day Jake Blount, Mick Kelly, Dr. Copeland and Biff Brannon all come to visit him at the same time.

• Though when they come alone, they have a lot to say to Mr. Singer, when they are all there, they don’t speak.

Speaking in sign language

• Mr.Singer can only “speak” to his friends by writing notes.

• One of the reasons he misses his friend Antonapoulos so much he because he can speak to him using sign language.

Antonapoulos

• Singer never stops missing his friend and he goes to visit him at the asylum as often as he can.

• The story implies that he is in love with him

• Antonapoulos dies in the asylum.

• When Singer finds out, he shoots himself in the chest.

What Mr. Singer needed

• To his 4 friends (and other people that he meets in the story) Mr. Singer is the most important person they know.

• However the person who gives Mr. Singer what he needs in life is Antonapoulos.

• In this story, what people most need is someone that they can talk to, who they feel understands them.

• When he dies, Mr. Singer cannot continue.

Communication

• This is a novel about how people communicate with each other, and how difficult people find it to say important things.

• Often people are lonely because they do not know how to communicate the things that are most private and secret.

Flannery O’Connor

• (1925 - 1964)

• She was born in Georgia.

• She inherited the disease lupus from her father. Because of this she had to live at home with her mother.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

A Good Man is Hard to Find

• This story is about a family - a grandmother, her son and his wife and two children.

• They are taking a trip to Florida.

• The Grandmother wants to go to Tennessee instead.

The Misfit

• She tries to convince her son to change his plans by talking about the Misfit.

• The Misfit is a murderer who has escaped from prison.

• She suggests that it may be dangerous to travel to Florida.

• Once on the road, the Grandmother suggests she would like to visit a nearby house.

• She manages to convince her son to stop by making it sound exciting for the children.

• To her horror, she suddenly realises that the house is in a different state.

• Her reaction to this realisation causes the car to crash.

The Misfit

• The family are stranded by the side of the road.

• Another car stops and three men get out, the Grandmother recognises one of them as the Misfit.

• Having been recognised, The Misfit and his men kill the entire family.

Question:

• Is the Grandmother in A Good Man is Hard to Find a good person?

Errors

• The Grandmother has directed the car down an abandoned road.

• She has caused the car to crash.

• She tells the Misfit that she recognises him (he may have let them go, if she had kept quiet).

Selfish?

• Some critics argue that the grandmother is selfish.

• However, she does not intentionally get the family into this trouble.

• There is an important conversation between the Misfit and the Grandmother before he kills her.

A Late Encounter with the Enemy

• This is a story about General Sash and his granddaughter, Sally.

• General Sash is 104 years old.

• His granddaughter is 62. She has just completed a degree course as a mature student.

Ceremony

• As a former soldier, her grandfather will be allowed to sit on stage as a distinguished guest.

• Sally is desperate that her father lives long enough to see her graduation.

Question:

• What kind of man is General Sash?

General Sash

• General Sash is a very proud, arrogant man.

• He likes to feel important.

• However he is a very old man and can now do almost nothing for himself.

• He dies as she is receiving her degree.

Sally

• Sally is also a selfish person.

• She wants to show off her grandfather, but many of the things she is showing off are fake.

• He wasn’t a general and his uniform is from a film set.

The past

• Sally wants everyone to see her grandfather in uniform on the stage, because he represents history and tradition to her.

• But her grandfather can no longer remember anything that has happened to him in his lifetime.

• The “enemy” that he encounters could be understood as the past.