Southern Grotesque1

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South Atlantic Modern Language Association

The Moral Function of Distortion in Southern GrotesqueAuthor(s): Delma Eugene PresleySource: South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 2 (May, 1972), pp. 37-46Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3197720

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2/11

THE MORAL

FUNCTION

OF

DISTORTION

IN

SOUTHERN GROTESQUE

DELMA

EUGENE

PRESLEY

Georgia

Southern

College

Interpretations

of the

grotesque

in recent Southern

literature

often

seem

as diverse

as

the offhand

comments

of the blind

men

about the

proverbial

elephant.

Most

agree

that

this massive

body

of

works

has

a

shape

unlike

other

objects

they

have

encountered.

But from this point on, there is a multiplicity of explanations. A

common

description

has to

do with

causation: Southern

grotesque

is

often

said

to

be

the

literary

aftermath

of

historical

misfoitune.

William

Van

O'Connor,

in

a

volume

called

The

Grotesque,

main-

tains

that the "old

agricultural

system"

of

the South

depleted

the

land

and left

an

economically

unstable

and

emotionally

under-

developed

society.

He

reasons:

"Poverty

breeds

abnormiality;

in

many

cases,

people

were

living

with

a

code

that

was

no

longer

applicable,

and

this meant a

detachment

from

reality

and

a

loss

of

vitality."'

Another

critic,

Lewis

A.

Lawson,

adds

to

this

theory

the

explanation

that the Southern experience is characterized

by

"cultural

confusion"

having

to

do

with

its

agrarian

heritage.

The

South,

Mr.

Lawson

points

out,

has "retained

a

provincial,

insular,

conservative

culture. It

is

even

totlay

more

agrarian-minded

than

the

remainder

of the

country.

The

setting

of

its

novels

is still

in

the

country

or

the

small

town,

whereas most

'American'

novels

have

an urban

setting

..

."'

Given

such a

culturally-oriented

analysis,

it

should

come

as

no real

surprise

to

learn

that we

are

said to

be

at

the

end of

the

period of the grotesque since "the South in the last fifteen years

has

rejoined

the

cultural

union."3

Furthermore,

the

grotesque

mode

is

said

to

contain

a

vision

characteristic

of a

philosophical

movement,

the

absurd.

Mr. Lawson's

essay

ends

with

this

state-

ment:

"If

the world

is

absurd,

then

one

must

embrace

a

philosophy

of the

absurd;

consequently

several

recent

novels

.

.

reveal

existen-

tial

professions

of

faith."4

Not

all

treatments

of the

grotesque

attempt

to

explain

it

in

terms

of

its

cultural

and

philosophical

tendencies.

Irving

Malin,

for

example, says

his

examination

of

grotesque

works

(he prefersthe

term

"gothic")

is

fundamentally

a

description

of their

surface

characteristics.

Mr.

Mlalin

finds

himself

in

agreement

with

John

Aldridge,

who

speaks

of

a

"poetry

of

disorder."

The

disorders

are

threefold:

narcissism,

familial

conflict,

and

dream-like

confusion.


3/11

Grotesque

The

evidence

of distorted love

suggests

to Mr.

Malin that the

grotesque reflects radical narcissism: "Although it is easy to dismiss

the

cripples

and

homosexuals in

new

American

gothic

as

sensa-

tional

cardboard

figures, they

are

frequently

symbols

of

disfiguring,

narcissistic

love.

They

'work'

as does Frankenstein."5

Since

self-love

usually

begins

at

home,

Mr. Malin's

second

definition

of

"new

American

gothic"

includes

the belief

that

"the

family

dramatizes

the

conflict

between

private

and social

worlds,

ego

and

super-ego."

The third

characteristic

accounts

for

chronological

confusion

and

personal

disengagement

in

"gothic":

"This

total

effect

is that

of

a

dream."6

One would be both

presumptuous

and

wrong

to dismiss com-

pletely

the

insights

into the

literature

of the

grotesque

which

issue

from

the critical

approaches

of

William

Van

O'Connor,

Lewis

A.

Lawson,

and

Irving

Malin.

However,

there is

good

reason to

question

each,

for

not

one of them

pays enough

attention

to the

function of

distortion-a

function

Flannery

O'Connor

considered

the sine

qua

non for the

grotesque

mode. The

fact

that the

grotesque

is

seldom

understood

properly,

according

to

Miss

O'connor,

is

re-

lated to the critic's

lack

of

familiarity

with

the

Southern

experience.

She once told students at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia: "I

have found

that

anything

that comes

out

of

the South

is

going

to

be

called

grotesque

by

the Northern

readers,

unless

it

is

grotesque,

in

which

case

it

is

going

to

be

called

realistic."

Miss

O'Connor

then

pointed

out

that

grotesque

works

present

a

"mystery

and

the un-

expected"

which

refer

to

unusual

experiences

not included

in

the

"manners and

customs"

of

everyday

existence.7

Literature

of

the

grotesque,

according

to the

authoress,

is

distinguished

by

a

moral

or

theological

vision

not

usually

associated

with realistic

works.

Freaks

appear

in

her

fiction,

she

said,

to reflect

quite

simply

what

man is like without God:

Whenever

I'm

asked

why

Southern

writers

particularly

have a

penchant

for

writing

about

freaks,

I

say

it

is

because

we are

still

able

to

recognize

one.

To

be able

to

recognize

a

freak,

you

have

to

have

conception

of the whole

man,

and

in

the South

the

general

conception

of man is

still,

in

the

main,

theological.8

We

might

think of

Miss

O'Connor's

remarks

in the

following

way:

Imagine

that

the

surface

of

grotesque

literature

is like

that

of a three-way mirror found in most tailor's shops. The only prob-

lem

is that

each

section

is broken

and

often

pieces

of mirror

are

completely

missing.

What

you

get

is an

image

of

depth,

but it

is

also

an

unpleasant

collection

of unrelated

and distorted

parts

of

38


4/11


5/11

Grotesque

witness about

human

possibilities

in the

light

of

God's

grace

as well

as the inhuman possibilities of lives lived without that light. Thus

the

function of

distortion

in

Southern

grotesque

is

essentially

moral

in

nature;

this

mode

presents

simultaneously

an

image

of

man's

incompleteness

and

an

understanding

of what he

ought

to

be.

The

theological

nature

of

grotesque

is

appropriated

usually

by

critics

to the works

of

Flannery

O'Connor

who,

incidentally,

makes

it

no

hard task.

However,

there

are

good

reasons

to

bear

in mind

her

point

of view when we examine

other

grotesque

works.

While

the

focus

may

not be

the

same,

the

vision

is

there for sure.

For

example,

contrary

to

the

general

opinion

of

critics,

both

Carson

McCullers and Tennessee Williams draw upon a view of man in-

formed

by

the

redemptive

potential

of

love. Their

grotesque

crea-

tions

proceed

on

the

assumption

that

there

exists

a

norm

against

which

the

aberrations

of

their characters

should be

judged.

The

chief

difference

between

these two writers

is

that,

whereas

Mrs. McCullers

emphasizes

the

darkness

of

life

without the

light

of

love,

Williams,

particularly

in the works

written

since the

mid-fifties,

speaks

of

the

benign

possibilities

of

living

in that

light.

Carson

McCullers'

fictional

creations

appear

as stiff

puppets

performing in front of a hazy yet

constant

backdrop.

Her

concern

with

twisted

lives,

as

early

as

"Reflections

in

a

Golden

Eye,"

first

published

in

Harper's

in

1941,

seems

to

be related

to a

larger

truth

about

life's

meaning.

Tennessee

Williams,

a

loyal

friend

and in-

terpretor

of

McCullers'

work,

wrote

an

introduction

to the

1950

edition

of

Reflections

in a

Golden

Eye.

He

suggests

that

there

is a

mysterious

"Sense

of

the

Awful"

in

Mrs.

McCullers'

writing.

On

the

surface

are

"crazy

people

doing

terrible

things."

But these

are

external

symbols

of "a kind

of

spiritual

intuition

of

something

almost

too incredible

and

shocking

to talk about....

It is the

in-

communicable something that we shall have to call mystery. .

.10

The

closest

we

get

to

that

"incommunicable

something"

in

Reflec-

tions

is that

"ghastly

green"

peacock

with

a

golden

eye-drawn

in

watercolor

by

Anacleto,

the

Filipino

houseboy

and

constant

com

panion

of

Alison

Langdon.

Mrs.

Langdon

and

her friend

speak

of

"grotesque"

reflections

in

the "immense

golden

eye." (This

concept

of

reflection

is not

far

removed

from

our

interpretation

of

Flannery

O'Connor's

position.)

One

assumes that

the mirror

device

in

this

novella

reflects

the distorted

images

of

those

surrounding

them:

the

sadistic

Captain

Penderton

and

his

masochistic-voyeur

Private

Elgee

Williams;

the

Captain's

sensual

yet

dumb wife, Lenora, and

her lover

Major

Morris

Langdon-the

handsome

but

insensitive

husband

of

the

semi-invalid

Alison.

We

see

three

couples

in

this

work:

the

Captain

and

the

Private,

Lenora

and the

Major,

Alison

40


6/11

South

Atlantic

Bulletin

and Anacleto. The first two

couples,

probably

seen

through

the

eye

of the watercolor peacock, engage in actions which reflect that,

despite

their

need

for

love,

they

are committed

to

nothing

less

than

distorted

images

of

their own

selfishness;

this

is not

merely

narcis-

sism,

as

Malin

suggests.11

Alison

and

Anacleto,

on

the other

hand,

want

to

leave

this

grotesque

menagerie

and

begin

a new

life

together

untainted

by

sexual

contact.

Alison's

fatal

heart

attack

prevents

this,

yet

an

ideal

exists

in

Reflections

although

doomed

from

the

start.

The

publication

of

"The

Ballad

of

the

Sad Cafe"

by

Harper's

Bazaar

in

1943

demonstrated

that

Mrs.

McCullers'

earlier

story

was

not

as

insignificant

as

both

she

and

her

most

sympathetic

critics

contended. Instead of

expurgating

her earlier fascination with the

grotesque,

this effort

clarifies

and refines that

fascination

into

a

piece

of short

fiction

which

many

consider to be the

best

from

her

pen.

Carson

McCullers'

Ballad

is

an

attempt

to

go

beyond

her

earlier

tale and

fashion her

materials

into

an

allegory

embodying

a

moral

point

of

view.

Her

experimentation

with

allegorical

technique

is

precisely

what

Mark Schorer

says

all

technical

experimentations

are-a

discovery

of

"intellectual

and

moral

implications."12

After

telling

the

story

of Miss

Amelia

Evans'

unsuccessful

search

for love

with

two kinds of men-the stud Marvin Macey and the queer Ly-

mon

Willis-Mrs.

McCullers ends

her

story

with

a

parable

which

clarifies

the issue

presented

so

subtly

in

the

preceding

narrative.

The

parable

concerns

"twelve mortal

men,"

all

prisoners

and

mem,

bers

of

the chain

gang.

They

cannot

avoid

their

task of

breaking

the

"clay

earth"

on

sweltering

August days.

They

are

condemned

to

an

earthly

hell-separated

by

the chains

that

bind

them

together.

Yet

condemnation does not

preclude

human

hopefulness:

And

every day

there is

music. One

dark voice will start

a

phrase, half-sung,

and

like a

question.

And

after

a

mo-

ment another voice will

join

in,

soon the

whole

gang

will

be

singing.

The

voices

are

dark

in the

golden

glare,

and

the

music

intricately

blended,

both

somber

and

joyful.

The

music

will swell

until

at

last

it

seems that

the

sound

does

not

come

from

the

twelve

men on

the

gang,

but

from the

earth

itself,

or

the

wide

sky.

It

is

music that

causes

the

heart

to

broaden and

the

listener

to

grow

cold

with

ecstasy

and

fright.13

The

hopefulness

of

this

music,

as

Oliver

Evans

notes,

is

love:

"They

escape temporarily through their singing (love), which it is signifi-

cant

that

they

do

together

in

an

attempt

to

resolve,

or

rather

dis-

solve,

their

individual

identities."14

Even

though

one

seldom

finds

examples

of

durable

love

among

41


7/11

Grotesque

members

of a

group

or

between

two

people

in McCullers'

fiction,

one is nevertheless struck by the fact that she considers it both

good

and

necessary

that

her

characters

seek

love. Love

brings

out

the

best

in either

partner,

as evidenced

by

the

noticeable

ameliora-

tion

of Miss Amelia's

manner after the

hunchback

Lymon

takes

up

with

her:

Miss

Amelia

was the

same

in

appearance. During

the week

she

still

wore

swamp

boots

and

overalls,

but

on

Sunday

she

put

on

a

dark

red

dress

that

hung

on

her

in

a

most

peculiar

fashion. Her

manners,

however,

and

her

way

of

life

were

greatly changed.

She

still

loved a

fierce

lawsuit,

but she

was

not

so

quick

to

cheat her

fellow man

and to

exact

cruel

payments.

Because the

hunchback

was

so ex-

tremely

sociable,

she

even

went

out

a

little-to

revivals,

to

funerals,

and

so forth.15

The

relationship

between

Miss

Amelia

and

Cousin

Lymon

is

similar in kind to that

of

Alison

and

Anacleto;

it

exists

on an

ideal

level

transcending

mere

carnal

knowledge.

Occasionally

the

partners

seem to

possess

the rare

gift

of

clairvoyance.

Each

knows

instinctively

how

to

please

the

other.

Alison

and

Anacleto

eagerly

engage

in delicate rituals of tea and conversation about art and

travel.

The

knowing

glances

exchanged

between

Amelia

and

Lymon

indicate a

similar

depth

of

knowledge

which

even

the

townspeople

acknowledge.

Despite

these moments

of

personal

transcendence,

however,

each

couple ultimately

fails

to

stretch

the moment

into

a

lengthy

relationship,

a

way

of

life.

Their

failure to achieve

last-

ing

love,

let it

be

noted,

is

a

comment

as

much

upon

their inimical

environment

as

it

is

upon

their own

incompleteness.

The failure

certainly

does not

suggest

that it

was

wrong

for

them

to

seek

love.

And the benefits of living in the light of love, as evidenced in the

relationships

of

Alison-Anacleto

and

Amelia-Lymon,

far

outweigh

the

shallow

selfishness

of those

surrounding

them.

Because

Malin

overlooks

McCullers'

understanding

of

the

salutary

nature

of human

love,

his

thesis about

narcissism

in

her

works

must be set aside

as

a

limited criticism.16 He

has failed to notice the

way

distortion

is

used

to

call attention

to what

is

sadly lacking

in

the lives

of

most

of

Mrs.

Cullers'

stiff

characters-love.

Carson

McCullers and

Tennessee

Williams have a

great

deal

in common.

Their characters are vexed

by

frustrations

of

the

mind

and the

body,

and their styles have

strong poetic

touches. Williams'

introduction

to

Reflections,

aside

from

his

critical

comment

about

the role

of

"mystery"

in her

vision,

is

an

open

affirmation

of

his

warm

personal

regard

for her. But

the

view

of

man

that

ultimately

42


8/11

South

Atlantic

Bulletin

emerges

from

the

body

of Williams'

works makes

him

more

akin

to Flannery O'Connor. His works published since the mid-fifties

often

tend

to

surpass

Miss

O'Connor's

in terms

of their

obvious

theological

meaning.

Williams' short

story,

"Desire

and the

Black

Masseur,"

is

per-

haps

the earliest

and

clearest

example

of his

grotesque

vision.

A

small

man,

aged thirty,

named

"Burns,"

had "no idea

of

what

his

real desires were."

He

had

an

"instinct

for

being

included

in

things

that

swallowed

him

up."

He

was

engulfed

by

his

relatives

and

em-

ployer.

One

day,

while

visiting

a turkish

bath,

he discovers

that

his

masseur

is

a

huge

Negro

man.

The masseur

goes

about his work

with

a

strange

violence which

produces

in Burns masochistic

pleasure;

for

this

he returns

regularly

until the

manager

discovers one

day

the

bruised

body

of Burns.

He shouts

to the

masseur:

"Get the hell

out

of

my place

.

.

.

Take this

perverted

little

monster

with

you,

and

neither of

you

had

better show

up

here

again "17

The

masseur

takes

Burns

to

his

place

in the town's

colored section.

While Burns'

body

is

being

dissected

and

eaten

by

the

giant

black

man,

across the

street

a

preacher

admonishes

his

worshipers:

Suffer,

suffer,

suffer

Our Lord

was nailed

on

a

cross

for

the sins of the world They led him above the town to

the

place

of

the

skull,

they

moistened

his

lips

with

vinegar

on

a

sponge, they

drove five

nails

through

his

body,

and

He

was

the

Rose of the

World

as

He bled

on

the

crossl18

Note that

this

tale

of

grotesque

horror

takes

place

during

the

celebration

of

the

death

of

Jesus.

The

only

connection

one

can

make

between

these two

events is that

the

pain

and

pleasure

of

human

violence

has a

theological

counterpart.

This

early

story

simply

states,

without

clarification,

that

a

relationship

exists

be-

tween human actions and theological meaning.

Other

works

by

Williams

are

similar

in

one

way

or

another

to

"Desire

and

the

Black

Masseur."

Yet

the

author

has not

often

left

unexplained

the

connection

between

human

actions

and

theo-

logical

meaning.

In

a

play

of

1958,

Suddenly

Last

Summer,

one

finds

among

references to

homosexuality

and

cannibalism

an overt

moral

point

of

view.

We

learn that

last

summer

Sebastian

Venable

was

devoured

by

street

urchins-many

of

whom

he

had

formerly

entertained

and

selfishly

indulged.

Sebastian

never

appears

in

the

play.

The

story

of

his

bizarre

death

is

the

awful

burden

of

his

cousin, Catharine Holly. Sebastian's mother refuses to believe Cath-

arine's

story

and

tries to

keep

her

in an

asylum

to

protect

her

son's

"good

name."

But

we

know,

as

does

the

psychiatrist

Cuckrowicz,

that

the

girl's

story

is

true.

And we also

know that her

concept

of

43


9/11

Grotesque

the incident's

moral

meaning

is central to

this

play:

Sebastian's

utterly selfish life and his shocking form of death are a parable of

"our times."

His

destiny perfectly

symbolizes

what

happens

to

one

who

possesses

a

daemonic vision

of

God and

lives

completely

unto

himself.19 Catharine cannot

accept

either

Sebastian's view

of God

or

his

distorted

concept

of

mankind.

She

proposes

that,

while

the

human situation

may

well

be

compared

to

the fate of

passengers

aboard a

ship

wrecked

at

sea,

"that's

no

reason for

everyone

drown-

ing

for

hating

everyone drowning "20

The modern

problem

is

ethical

in

nature:

"We all

use each

other and

that's what we

think

of

as

love,

and not

being

able to

use

each

other

is

what's-hate.

.

.

"21

Catharine explains that Sebastian's fundamental problem, like man-

kind's,

concerns

misconceptions

about

the

true

God:

"We're

all of

us

children

in

a

vast

kindergarten

trying

to

spell

God's

name with

the

wrong alphabet

blocks."22

Even in the

early

plays,

Williams'

concern with

moral

issues

is

fairly

obvious.

In

A

Streetcar

Named

Desire

the

conflict

is

clearly

the flesh

versus

the

spirit;

not

only

is the

clash

evident

in

the mutual

antagonism

of

the "brute"

Stanley

and

the

"moth"

Blanche,

it is

the

major

tension

within

the lives

of

each. Blanche's

aestheticism

is overbalanced

by

her

alcoholism, nymphomania,

and

debauchery;

Stanley's

tender

love for

his

wife,

Stella,

is undermined

by

his

coarse

brutality.

The

inability

of the flesh

to

coexist

harmoniously

with the

spirit-a

classical

theological

problem-is

once

again

seen in

the

allegorical

Summer

and

Smoke,

produced

shortly

after

Streetcar.

It is

important

to

remember

that the

bulk

of Williams'

so-called

grotesque

works

have

a

moral

focus.

Indeed

this focus

has

become

so

adjusted,

so

refined,

in

his

recent

works

that

we

no

longer

see

distortion,

only

clear

pictures

of

reconciliation

in

progress.

In

The

Night

of

the

Iguana (1961)

the

neurotic

minister

finally

finds

peace with God and man. In The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here

Anymore

(1964)

a

dying

affirmer of

the

flesh

learns

a

spiritual

les-

son

from a

mystic

who has

more than

surface

resemblances

to

Jesus

Christ

and

other bearers of God

from

the

Orient.

Despite

the

ex-

istence

of

theological

content

in

Williams'

works,

the

critical,

or

rather

uncritical,

myth

continues

that

he

is

a

playwright

obsessed

with sex and

violence.

The

truth

is that

he

has

interpreted

the

moral

function of his

grotesque

vision

to

unheeding

critics

and

interpreters

to

the

point

of

oversimplification,

and

in

so

doing

has

lost

what he

once

described

as

the

grotesque's

sense of

"mystery."

The function of distortion in recent Southern grotesque litera-

ture

is

to set

forth

an

interpretation

either of

the whole

man

or

of

what

might

make

him whole.

Flannery

O'Connor's

conception

of

man

is rooted in

Christian

thought,

as is

Tennessee

Williams'

44


10/11

South Atlantic

Bulletin

conception

with

some modifications.

Carson

McCullers'

distortions

reflect her characters' need of the salutary quality of a human love

which

transcends the limitations

of the flesh.

Although

the

views

of

the

whole man

are not

always

shared

by

the three

writers,

the

function

of

the distorted

images

in each

is moral

in nature.

Louis

D.

Rubin,

Jr.,

would

probably

have us

add to this

list the

name

of

William Faulkner-once

described

by

Tennessee

Williams

as

a

"most

notorious and

unregenerate

member"

of

the

"Gothic

School."

Professor Rubin

explains

that

the

aberrations,

frustrations,

and

failures

in

Faulkner's

world

are there

to reveal

a

larger

view

of

the

potential

of human

love:

He wanted

the world

to be

a

place

where

love

is

stronger

than

fear,

compassion

is

stronger

than

hate.

It

was

not

such

a

world,

and so he

composed

tragedies,

show-

ing

what

happened

to

people

when

love was

absent.

He

showed the

destructiveness

of

hate,

the

futility

of

selfish-

ness,

the

viciousness

of fear.

He

created human

beings

dominated

by

these

passions,

showed the

ruin

they

wreaked.23

The

grotesque

mode

in

recent

Southern literature

cannot

be under-

stood when one fails to

grasp

the moral function of distortion.

That

most

critical

responses

to the

grotesque

have

not

taken

this into

account is

evident

in the

repetition

of irrelevancies

about

decadence

which

are

often based

on

untenable theories

of

cultural

causation

and

which

usually

result

in

unimaginative

interpretations.

The

image

of

man

is

broken

in

this

vision,

but

it

has not

always

been

nor

should it

necessarily

reniain.

But

since

the

present image

is

broken,

the

grotesque

mode

continually

reminds

us of

what

once

was

and,

better

still,

what

yet

might

be.

NOTES

1.

William

Van

O'Connor,

The

Grotesque:

An

American Genre

and

Other

Essays

(Carbondale,

Illinois,

1962),

p.

6.

2.

Lewis A.

Lawson,

'The

Grotesque

in

Recent

Southern

Fiction"

in

Patterns

of

Commlitnment

in

American

Literature,

el.

by

Marston

LaFrance

(Toronto,

1967),

p.

175.

3.

Lawson,

p.

178.

4.

Lawson,

p.

179.

He

thinks

of

the

following

as

"existential

affirmations

of

faith":

Styron's

Set

7'his

House on

Fire,

McCullers'

Clock

Without

Hands,

and

Percy's

The

Moviegoer.

5.

Irving

Malin, New American

Gothic

(Carbondale,

Illinois,

1962),

pp.

5-6.

6.

Malin,

p.

9.

7.

Flannery

O'Connor,

"Sonie

.-spects

of

the

Grotesque

in

Southern

Fiction,"

in

Mystery

(aid

Man,lers,

ed.

by

Sally

and

Robert

Fitzgerald

(New

York,

1969),

p.

40.

45


11/11

Grotesque

8.

O'Connor,

Mystery

and Manners.

p.

44.

9.

Ibid., pp.

117-18.

10.

Tennessee

Williams,

"Introduction,"

Reflections

in

a

Golden

Eye

by

Carson

McCullers

(New

York,

1950), p.

xiii.

11.

Malin overlooks

the

relationship

between Alison and Anacleto and

treats

only

the

violent

aspects

of the

Captain's

and the Private's various encounters.

See

pp.

23-25.

12.

Mark

Schorer,

"Technique

as

Discovery"

in

Critical

Approaches

to

Fiction,

ed.

by

Keith McKean and

Shiv

K.

Kumar

(New

York,

1968),

p.

273.

13.

Carson

McCullers,

The

Ballad

of

the

Sad

Cafe

and

Other Stories

(New

York,

1958),

p.

71.

14.

Oliver

Evans,

The

Ballad

of

Carson McCullers

(New

York,

1965),

pp.

133-34.

15.

McCullers, Ballad,

p.

24.

16. Mr. Malin's

point

about narcissism

is limited with reference to

Mc-

Cullers.

However,

he

seems

pretty

much

on

target

when

he

turns

to

Capote

and

Salinger.

See

pp.

14-19.

17. Tennessee

Williams,

One

Arm

and

Other

Stories

(New

York,

1948),

p.

92.

18. Ibid.

19.

For

a

clever

treatment

of

this

play

as

a

well

wrought

didactic

drama,

see

Paul

J.

Hurley,

"Suddenly

Last Summer

as

a

Morality

Play,"

Modern

Drama,

IX

(February,

1966),

392-402.

20.

Tennessee

Williams,

Suddenly

Last Summer

(New

York,

1958),

p.

64.

21.

Ibid.,

p.

63.

22.

Ibid.,

p.

42.

23.

Louis D.

Rubin,

Jr.,

The

Curious Death

of

the

Novel:

Essays

in

American

Literature

(Baton

Rouge,

Louisiana,

1967),

p.

150.

Southern

Books

Exhibits of

the

Southern

Books

of 1971 chosen

by

a

jury

of bookmen in

Detroit are

available

to

libraries

which

have locked

display

cases.

Some

thirty

books, selected on the basis of typography and design, are available for an

exhibit

of

one month.

Apply

to Lawrence

S.

Thompson, Department

of

Classics,

1169

Patterson,

University

of

Kentucky,

Lexington,

Kentucky

40506. A

printed

handlist

will be

available

in the

latter

part

of the

spring,

and

typed

lists are

available

at

present.

Mr.

Thompson

also

arranges

for

exhibits of

a

comparable

group

of

Mid-

western

Books,

Russian

Books,

and

Swedish

Books.

Of

the

first

the

1971 books

are

now

available,

and

of

the

Russian

and

Swedish

the

1970

books

are

now avail-

able.

There is

no

charge

for

any

of

these

exhibits,

but

libraries

which show

them must

handle

carriage

charges,

including

insurance en route

to

the next

exhibitor.

46

Documents

Southern Grotesque1