Here is my presentation's main character, Carson McCullers.

Carson McCullers was born on February 19, 1917. She was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright,and poet. She was famous for novels like The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. McCullers wrote in the Southern Gothic tradition. Her novels are often dark, with lonely and isolated characters.

During WWII, McCullers lived in the February House, a Brooklyn artist's commune, where freethinking voices congregated, debated and composed iconic works.

Her marriage was most likely a tragedy. She married Reeves McCullers in 1937. He was a failed author and soldier. Their relationship was turbulent. She divorced him in 1941, but remarried him in 1945. He was a chronic alcoholic, and she attempted suicide in 1948 after suffering from severe depression. McCullers finally left him in 1953.

She died in New York, at the age of 50, 1967.

In 1940, McCullers received an enormous amount of critical praise and commercial success with her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.The title was taken from Fiona MacLeod's poem "The Lonely Hunter." The work centered on a deaf-mute who finds himself the sounding board for four members of a small Georgia town—a restaurant owner, a political activist, an African-American doctor and a teenage girl. Through their stories, the characters reveal their frustrations, their loneliness and their isolation from those around them.

While McCullers decided to remarry in 1945, her career continued to thrive with the publication of the novella The Member of the Wedding in the following year. The novel tells the story of 12-year-old tomboy Frankie Addams, who feels disconnected from the world. Frankie's mother died when she was born, and her father is a distant, uncomprehending figure. Her closest companions are the family's African American maid. She has no friends in her small Southern town and dreams of going away.

With a collection of work including five novels, two plays, twenty short stories, more than two dozen nonfiction pieces, a book of children's verse, a small number of poems, and an unfinished autobiography, Carson McCullers is considered to be among the most significant American writers of the twentieth century. She is best known for her novels The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Reflections in a Golden Eye and The Member of the Wedding, all published between 1940 and 1946. At least four of her works have been made into films.

This is the quote I want to share with the class. “The Heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire! To find some lasting comfort in the arms of another fire...driven by a desperate hunger to the arms of a neon light, the heart is a lonely hunter when there's no sign of love in sight!”

This quote is taken from the end of the novel. Despite of all the depressing events and failed hopes, the message McCullers leaves is an uplifting one. She teaches me that even though human love may often be misguided, the wondrous fact that humans are capable of loving and believing in others makes life worth living, like the neon in the night.

I think love has a wide definition that includes friendships and family relationships as well as romantic ones. As a result, having love inside enables us to share it with others. This will show in the behavior as opening doors for schoolmates or holding doors open for them. It shows as standing in line and someone cuts off and all you do is say, “It’s okay, you must be in a hurry today.” rather than the usual curse word. When you are in love, others benefit from it just as much as you do and that is something to be proud of because it makes you a better human being.