Proposal

Proposal

I am proposing a journey to Columbus, GA to visit the hometown of Carson McCullers. The road trip focuses on Carson McCullers, and the community she was surrounded by. In her works McCullers often contemplated her feelings of isolation, and placed these feelings on many of her characters. I am interested in how the two seemingly opposite themes of community and isolation function in the life of Carson McCullers, as well as in her story The Ballad of The Sad Cafe. I will start my journey in Austin, TX shortly after finals are done. I will leave by car on a Thursday and return on a Tuesday. The first leg of my road trip will be the longest, it is from Austin to Monroeville, Alabama. Monroeville is the hometown of Truman Capote and Harper Lee, two important Southern Literary figures. I wanted to visit here for two reasons. Firstly, I really enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird. Secondly, and more importantly, Truman Capote and Carson McCullers had an interesting friendship which could help us understand a little more about McCullers. Truman Capote was apart of this community I mentioned earlier. From Monroeville I will then go to Milledgeville, Georgia. I would like to visit Milledgeville because it is the hometown of Flannery O'Connor. By looking at the life of a fellow Southern Gothic Author perhaps I can learn something about the Southern Gothic style of Carson McCullers. I will learn about O'Connors life, and will be able to see how she dealt with illness in comparison to McCullers. After I visit Milledgeville I will travel to Charlotte, North Carolina. This town has direct ties to McCullers because it is the place in which she wrote The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I will see the first and Second home McCullers lived in while she was writing the text. I also wanted to visit this town because of its scenic plantations and beauty. This will be my final stop before I reach Columbus Georgia. In Columbus I will see the house in which Carson McCullers grew up in, as well as battled illness in. While I am in each of these towns I will see childhood homes, museum exhibits, civil war reelects, an the commemoration of the cotton industry. It is my hope that all of these things will help me come to terms with the grotesque themes of Southern Gothic Literature. I also wish the better understand how McCullers rich literary community could lead to feelings of such isolation.

My Journey

My journey begins on Thursday with a drive from Austin, Tx to Monroeville, Al. This drive is 713mi and a little over 12 hours long. I will stay at the Mockingbird Inn for the night before I begin my tour of the city. I am visiting Monroeville, Al because it was the home of Truman Capote, and Harper Lee. As I am going on my journey I will be thinking about the McCullers familial and litereary community, Capote plays apart in this. McCullers sister introduced the two when Capote was just a young man. McCullers took a liking to him and helped him get published. However, later in life McCullers broke off the friendship because she felt that Capote was stealing her work. This is an instance of McCullers placing herself in a situation of self isolation when dealing with betrayal. We can see places in The Ballad of The Sad Cafe where Miss Amelia does the same thing. After Lymons betrayal, Miss Amelia isolates herself from the community in a way she had not done since Lymon appeared in her life. Perhaps, McCullers relationships with people such as Capote inspired her, and gave more fuel to her feelings of isolation. Interestingly enough, Capote attended both McCullers and Reeves funeral. It seems that though McCullers had ended their friendship, she had inspired loyalty in Capote.

I will stay in Monroeville for most of the day and then Friday evening I will drive from Monroeville to Milledgeville, GA. The drive is 312 mi and will take a little less than six hours. When I arrive I will stay at The Fairfield Inn for one night, and will sight see for most of the next day. I want to go to Milledgeville because it was the 2^nd home of Flannery O'Connor. O'Connor and McCullers had many things in common. O'Connor, like McCullers, was a female Southern Gothic writer. However, the most important similarity between McCullers and O'Connor is their battle with illness and their untimely deaths. While I am in Milledgeville I will see O'Connors home Andalusia, and I will also learn about her exhibit at Georgia College and State University. While I am there I hope to discover a little more about how she dealt with her illness. However, with my current knowledge I can say that she turned to religion. O'Connor wrote about dark things, about people dying or suffering great loss. I believe that this was her form of keeping faith while still explaining the bad things that had happened to her. This is a very different approach than what we see in the work of McCullers. Carson McCullers was at times very depressed, had thoughts of suicide, and drank to excess. Despite the fact that she displayed many of her feelings of isolation and sexual confusion in her work, she still seemed to suffer very much outwardly. I would hope to find out how O'Connor dealt with her situation in comparison to McCullers. I would guess it had something to do with the role religion played in O'Connors life.

After I leave Milledgeville, I will be headed to Charlotte North Carolina. The drive is 249 miles and 4 hours and 15 minutes. I will be staying at the Victorian Villa Bread and Breakfast. I will be dining at the Eli's Restaurant, which is actually one of the houses Carson Stayed in while she wrote. This is the town where McCullers wrote The Heart is A Lonely Hunter, her most commercial success. While I am there I will visit both of the houses she lived in while writing. I want to go to Charlotte because it is beautiful, but also because it represents an important period in McCullers life. At this time McCullers was still married and living with Reeves. McCullers and Reeves had a very complex relationship. They married when she was 20, shortly after she had published her first short story. Reeves was also a writer, however, he was not nearly as successful and this spurred jealousy. Later on in their relationship both McCullers and Reeves had romantic encounters with people of the same sex. During the Span of their relationship they were divorced once, married twice, and separated more than ten times. At the end of their marriage reeves wanted McCullers to commit suicide with him in Paris, she left and never saw him again. After he overdosed on pills McCullers refused to pay for him to be moved back to the states, or for the funeral. It seems odd that after a lengthy and wearing relationship McCullers would break it off so cleanly in his death. I want to explore how this perhaps leeching marriage effected McCullers aspects on isolation and community. She had many literary friends and people who respected her, however, she continually wrote of isolation. I see this theme of leeching relationships and isolation in the Ballad of The Sad Cafe through the love triangle of Amelia, Lymon, and Marvin Macey.

When I leave Charlotte I will finally be on my way to Columbus Georgia. The trip is 350 miles, and 6 hours and 30 minutes long. I will be staying at the Holiday Inn, and visiting McCullers childhood home. During the day I spend in Columbus I hope discover a little about McCullers home life, and see how this created her sense of isolation. She grew up with a mother who had a knack for telling stories. Between this, and her fathers gift of a typewriter we see McCullers career beginning to unfold. However, before writing became her passion her dreams of being a concert pianist were destroyed by her continuing sickness. I wish to discover how this sickness heightened her sense of isolation? Though I do have the time to go to New York, I want to touch briefly on the February House. In this artists colony McCullers met, and created lifelong friends. However, even when surrounded by people similar to her she continued to write about her feelings of isolation. Hopefully, a road trip such as this would help me to understand why McCullers felt this way. Why even when surrounded by a rich familial and literary community she placed isolation in every one of her works.

From Columbus I will drive to New Orleans, the trip is 508 miles and 8 ½ hours. This stop will be purely for pleasure, and so I can rest. While I am in New Orleans I want to see The St. Lewis Cathedral, and I would also like to visit Bourbon St. (Two apposing things, I know.) After I stay the night in New Orleans I will head home to Austin. The trip will be 350 miles and six hours flat. In a little less than a week I hope to discover something about my Southern heritage, and most importantly discover the source and influences of Carson McCullers feelings of isolation despite her rich community.