Sacred Groves and Ravaged Gardens: The Fiction of Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, and Flannery O'Connor

by Louise Westling

In Sacred Groves and Ravaged Gardens, Louise Westling explores how the complex, difficult roles of women in southern culture shaped the literary worlds of Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, and Flannery O'Connor. Tracing the cultural heritage of the South, Westling shows how southern women reacted to the violent, false world created by their men--a world in which women came to be shrouded as icons of purity in atonement for the sins of men. Exposing the actual conditions of women's lives, creating assertive protagonists who resist or revise conventional roles, and exploring rich matriarchal traditions and connections to symbolic landscapes Welty, McCullers, and O'Connor created a body of fiction that enriches and complements the patriarchal version of southern life presented in the works of William Faulkner, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and William Styron.

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

A terrible treatment of three great authors. When a scholar starts offering a reading of a text, regardless of their slant, close the book and put it back on the shelf.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The experience of reading amounts to a strange and potentially dangerous voyeurism. When most of a persons imaginative experience occurs inside the minds of the opposite sex, every time she returns to the world of everyday life from the dream life of the printed page, she is like a tomboy forced to come in from play, clean up, and put on a dress. Women readers are the truest tomboys of all; every time they enter into a fiction created by a man they enact an imperceptible, delicious trespass upon the other genders territory. She has formed her imagination through male conventions of misogyny, so that when she returns to herself, she is more deeply imprisoned than ever.”

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall a pretty good read. She goes heavy on Welty. Also, there’s a lot of attention to other authors as well, not just the three mentioned in the title. I also noticed that Dr. Westling seems to see sex everywhere. It’s almost like she’s looking for it. Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.

[Ufuk Tutucu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knowing and learning about a culture which you are distant to and whose language you are not a native of are quite difficult. Such writers' efforts to deliver specific features of their culture are highly appreciated and helpful. Comments on life in the South and McCullers seem legit and beneficial.

[Naguib]

I can finish reading this interesting book in three-weeks time.