CARSON McCULLERS - A native of Fort Worth, Texas - From Dale Edmonds

Sep 29, 2026

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A biographical study of Carson McCullers by Dale Edmonds foregrounds duality as a central pivot in her life and work, linking artistic visions to the sorrow of separation and division she experienced in relationships, health, and professional accomplishment. The author describes McCullers’s early life in Columbus, Georgia, her upbringing, formative illnesses later reinterpreted as rheumatic fever, and the beginnings of her musical and writing ambitions. It traces her early experimentation with writing, her dream of Juilliard, and how the loss of her “Juilliard fund” in New York redirected her path into creative writing classes at Columbia.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages56

Reading Time1 h 26 min

AccessFree to download

CARSON McCULLERS

Author's Note

Carson McCullers's Early Life

Illness and Adolescence

Music, Writing, and Early Ambitions

The Juilliard Dream and the Lost Fund

S1 525 1772 6 No.6 Southern Writers Series # CARSONMcCULLERS BY DALE EDMONDS Steck-Vaughn Company·Austin,Texas LIBRARY ALLENTOWN COLLEGEOF ST.FRANCES DE SALESCENTER VALLEY,PA 18034 61457 01SCARD Digitized by the Internet Archivein 2022 with funding fromKahle/Austin Foundation No.6 Southern Writers Series General Editors: 182对 Sam H.Henderson,James W.LeeNorth Texas State University Advisory Editors: Eugene Current-Garcia,Auburn University Louis D.Rubin,Jr.,University of North CarolinaLewis P.Simpson,Louisiana State University CARSONMcCULLERS BY DALE EDMONDS Tulane University Steck-Vaughn Company·Austin,Texas A native of Fort Worth,Texas,Dale Edmonds was gradu-ated from Texas Christian University in 1957.He wasco-founder and first editor of Descant,the TCU Literary Jour-nal.He served two years as a lieutenant on the Staff and Fac-ulty of The Adjutant General's School,U.S.Army,FtBenjamin Harrison,Indiana.He received the Ph.D.from TheUniversity of Texas in 1965.His dissertation was MalcolmLowry:A Study of his Life and Work.Since 1965 Edmondshas been an Assistant Professor of English at Tulane Uni-versity.Among his publications are“The Short Fiction ofMalcolm Lowry"and“Under the Volcano:A Reading ofthe Immediate'Level”in Tulane Studies in English.Dur-ing 1968-69 Edmonds served as Fulbright Lecturer in Amer-ican Literature at the University of Bucharest,Romania. AUTHOR'S NOTE In this study most of the quotations are from works ofCarson McCullers collected in what I call the“OmnibusEdition”:The Ballad of the Sad Café;The Novels and Sto-ries of Carson McCullers(Boston:Houghton Mifflin Co.,1951).After the first quotation from a work in this edition,I cite“Omnibus,”then the page number.For subsequentquotations in the same immediate context,I cite only thepage number.I follow this same principle in documentationof quotations from works not included in the Omnibus Edi-tion. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75-78487Copyright ◎1969 by Steck-Vaughn Company,Austin,TexasAll Rights Reserved.Printed and Bound in the United States of America 11 # CARSON McCULLERS CARSON McCULLERS We suffer the sorrow of separation and divisionWith a heart that blazes with Christ's vision: That though we be deviously natured,dual plannedFather,upon Thy image we are spanned. # —Carson McCullers“Father,Upon Thy Image We Are Spanned” THESE LINES from her cycle of poems“The Dual Angel:A Medi-tation of Origin and Choice”seem particularly applicable to Car-son McCullers,for the idea of duality is the pivot upon whichmuch of her work turns.It could be argued that her life revealsa similar duality.Carson McCullers suffered the “sorrow of sepa-ration and division"from those she loved,from a life of health andease,and from the full accomplishment for which her talent hadso clearly marked her.Yet her heart did indeed “blaze”withvisions-visions which were the substance of her art and the suste-nance of her life. Carson McCullers was born Lula Carson Smith on February 19,1917,in Columbus,Georgia,to Lamar and Marguerite WatersSmith.Various nonfiction pieces written in later life give glimpsesof Mrs.McCullers'childhood(see,for example,"How I Beganto Write,""Home for Christmas,""The Discovery of Christmas,""The Flowering Dream,"and“A Child’s View of Christmas”).Some of her fiction,as well,reflects these years—the charactersMick Kelly in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and Frankie Addamsin The Member of the Wedding come immediately to mind.Butthe circumstances of Carson's early life were more comfortable 工 than those of the lives of her fictional girls,and her childhood andadolescence,on the whole,seem to have been rather happy. Early in her childhood Carson suffered a severe attack of whatwas misdiagnosed at the time as “growing pains.”Doctors laterfelt certain that this early attack was rheumatic fever and was theoriginal cause of the strokes that were so damaging later in herlife.Bouts of illness d

FAQs

What theme does the author use to explain McCullers’s life and work?

The author presents duality as the pivot of much of McCullers’s work and suggests her life also shows a related pattern of separation and division alongside illuminating visions.

What childhood illness is discussed, and how was it later understood?

A severe early attack was initially misdiagnosed as “growing pains,” and doctors later believed it was rheumatic fever, described as the original cause of later strokes.

How did McCullers’s Juilliard goal change after moving to New York?

After arriving in New York in 1935, her “Juilliard fund” disappeared through loss or theft, ending hopes of a musical career; she then took daytime jobs that allowed her to enroll in creative writing classes at Columbia.

Sep 29, 2026

Uploaded by ahduag