Astonishing humanity: an intersectional study of the work of Carson McCullers

Li, Min (2025). Astonishing humanity: an intersectional study of the work of Carson McCullers. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis offers an in-depth study of Carson McCullers’s humanitarian concerns regarding marginalised groups, including African American people, workers, women, and queer individuals. Drawing on the theory of intersectionality, alongside other theories and concepts related to power, space, and identity, it examines the themes of spiritual isolation, identity confusion, existential crisis, and resistance within McCullers’s novels published between the 1940s and the 1960s. It argues that multiple axes of oppression work together across interpersonal, disciplinary, cultural, and structural domains and shape the experiences of marginalised individuals. Four chapters of this thesis discuss various issues pertaining to identities and power dynamics: class stratification, racial discrimination, and gender troubles in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter; restrictive gender and sexual norms and existential anguish on an army post in Reflections in a Golden Eye; children’s gender confusion and identity development in a heteropatriarchal society in The Member of the Wedding; and intersections of human biology and politics in Clock Without Hands. This thesis contributes to the study of McCullers by providing a comprehensive analysis of her sensitivity to the intersectional systems of oppression in mid-twentieth-century America, as well as her insight into the plight of marginalised groups and their diverse forms of resistance.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):