Disability & Belonging in the American South: A Case Study of Flannery O’Connor & Carson McCullers Restricted; Files Only
Jordan, Anikka (Spring 2023)
Published
Abstract
This thesis investigates how changing conceptions of illness and disability in the twentieth-century American South influenced Flannery O’Connor and Carson McCullers. I rely heavily on archival research to explore how and where beliefs about health appear in their writings. The central questions of this work are how did O’Connor and McCullers navigate the complex social world they lived in and define their identities around spirituality, community, and health, and what does that say about society and its institutions? More specifically, how did these two authors find a sense of belonging in their communities and reckon with their physical disabilities to create narratives that involve intellectual disability? First, I provide a history of the disability frameworks that led to mental institutionalization and draw on contemporary conceptualizations from disability studies scholars. Then, I move into a discussion of the authors’ lives and works. The primary texts analyzed are McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) and O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away (1960), with a focus on intellectual disability. Finally, I offer suggestions to make the archives more accessible, to participate in a kind of resistant remembering that refuses the erasure of disability history, and to raise disabled voices on the path to disability justice.
Table of Contents
A Note on Terminology - 1
Introduction - 2
A Quest for Belonging - 2
Silences in the Archives - 11
Chapter One: Enforcing Social Norms, Disability Studies, and Mental Institutions in the South - 13
Eugenics & Determining Intelligence - 13
Disability Studies and the Bodymind - 16
Central State Hospital (CSH) - 23
Chapter Two: Flannery O’Connor - 42
Life - 42
Work: The Violent Bear It Away - 48
Bishop as Narrative Prosthesis - 55
Work: “Introduction to A Memoir of Mary Ann” - 62
Chapter Three: Carson McCullers - 65
Life - 65
Work: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - 69
Conclusion: Where do you belong? - 82
Coda - 88
Works Cited - 90
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File download under embargo until 19 May 2025 | 2023-04-10 09:35:30 -0400 | File download under embargo until 19 May 2025 |
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