Finding Religion: The Legacy of the Christ-haunted South in Harry Crews’ A Feast of Snakes
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Authors
McCullers, Paula
Issue Date
2018-07
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Academic theses , English , O'Connor, Flannery , Crews, Harry, 1935-2012 , Criticism , Religion , Christianity , American literature , Southern States
Alternative Title
Abstract
My thesis proposes that Flannery O’Connor’s character the Misfit of the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and Joe Lon Mackey, the protagonist of Harry Crews’ novel A Feast of Snakes (1976), share a significant connection that manifests from their upbringing in what O’Connor calls the “Christ-haunted South.” This thesis attempts to create a working interpretation of O’Connor’s phrase “Christ-haunted South” and juxtapose it against the “Christ-centered” alternative. By defining these terms and using Luke Ferretter’s work Towards a Christian Literary Theory as a guide, it intends to explore the texts’ Christian elements to facilitate a better understanding of the culture in which the stories take place and offer instructive criticisms of Christian communities, especially those that have reduced Christianity to mere ideology or spectacle.
Specifically, it seeks to establish the Misfit’s struggle as a prototype of the Southern man who exposes the negative ramifications of the “Christ-haunted South.” Furthermore, it examines similar religious implications in A Feast of Snakes, and it suggests that Joe Lon struggles, like the Misfit, to obtain any type of transcendence in the “Christ-haunted” South. This alternative analysis reveals a gap in the current criticism of this text by highlighting the significance of Christian undertones in the novel. Thus, it expressly acknowledges that religion is an integral component of Southern culture and should therefore be addressed in the criticism of its literature, and it implies the need for the examinations of the breadth and depth of theological tropes in modern American literature as a whole.
**Keywords:**
Religion
Description
Citation
McCullers, Paula. “Finding Religion: The Legacy of the Christ-haunted South in Harry Crews’ A Feast of Snakes.” Master’s thesis, Valdosta State University, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10428/3159 [2018].
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License
This dissertation is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553, revised in 1976). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgement. Use of the materials for financial gain with the author's expressed written permissions is not allowed.