Title: Dietary Preferences and Identity Performances in Clock Without Hands

Abstract: After the American Civil War, the South underwent profound structural transformations, which were further accelerated by the Second World War. The traditional hierarchy came into conflict with the emergent democracy in terms of race, gender, and class, leading to identity dilemmas and subjectivity crises among Southerners. In Clock Without Hands, McCullers illustrates the historical changes and people’s identity performances through food narratives: Under the shadow of “the Southern family romance,” Malone clings to the old culture through anorexia and selective eating; the old Judge seeks solace in gluttony, while his identity is shattered by the impossibility of restoring the old order; Sherman attempts to shape his identity with luxurious food, but is eventually engulfed by materialism. Through the discourse of food, McCullers sketches a tableau of North-South tensions, denouncing the alienating effects of hierarchy and capitalism. Employing food narratives to express the novel’s allegorical themes, McCullers advocates social progress and the dissolution of segregation as the ultimate solutions to the Southerners’ identity struggles and spiritual crises.

Keywords: Carson McCullers, Clock Without Hands, food, identity performance, subjectivity

Authors: Ruoyi Huang, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Foreign Languages, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China; Mingwen Xiao, Professor, School of Foreign Languages, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.

DOI: 10.19967/j.cnki.flc.2026.02.002