Which two interconnected concepts does Carson McCullers develop in this excerpt from "Loneliness . . . an American Malady"? Love
is affirmation; it motivates the yes responses and the sense of wider communication. Love casts out fear, and in the security of this togetherness we find contentment, courage. We no longer fear the age-old haunting questions: "Who am I?" Why am I?" "Where am I going?" —and having cast out fear, we can be honest and charitable. For fear is a primary source of evil. And when the question "Who am I?" recurs and is unanswered, then fear and frustration project a negative attitude. The bewildered soul can answer only: "Since I do not understand 'Who I am,' I only know what I am not." The corollary of this emotional incertitude is snobbism, intolerance and racial hate.
Carson puts two opposite forces, feelings or ideas to each-other. In the essay, these forces are love and fear. The author shows how these feelings work and what kind of effect they have on us. Love is a motivation, a positive feeling or something eradicates hate - in this essay fear. Fear, instead is something negative which wipes away love.
