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Southern Writers
Carson McCullers
• (1917 - 1967)
• She was born in Georgia.
• She suffered from many illnesses and alcoholism.
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
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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
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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.