Adolescent Transformation In the Short Stories of Carson McCullers

<p>Carson McCullers's neglected short stories "Sucker", "Like That", and "The Haunted Boy" depict stark adolescent crises. Her character analyses dramatize important elements of many theories of adolescent psychology. Each of these stories depicts what happens when something goes horribly wrong in the course of an already difficult stage of life. In "Sucker" two different stages of adolescent development collide. Pete and Sucker go through different psychological adjustments. The two boys discover the difficulties of adolescent romance, hero-worship, peer group formation and exclusion, and power reversal. The narrator in "Like That" struggles with her Peter-Pan complex as she witnesses her sister go through an adolescent romance. She despises - and fears - the changes that adolescence and adulthood bring to her life and her family. "The Haunted Boy" explores the struggles of Hugh as he deals with issues of adult imitation, lack of a strong male role model, peer loyalty, and emotional repression.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year

2010

Author dc:creator

• Woods, Ashley-Ann Dorn

Contributors dc:contributor

• Lackey, Kris
• Cooke, John
• Doll, Daniel

• Carson McCullers
• short stories
• adolescence
• Erik Erickson
• adolescent romance
• hero worship
• peer-group
• imitation
• identity crisis
• Arts and Humanities
• English Language and Literature
• Literature in English, North America

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1196

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarworks.uno.edu:td-2179