Carolina's Characterization

Alienated Narrators in “Carolina” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Since Taylor Swift disappeared from the public eye after the release of Red (Taylor’s Version) in  November, the wait for information about her next project has been agonizing. Thankfully, a few weeks ago she dropped “Carolina,” a single featured on the soundtrack for the new movie (based off the book) Where the Crawdads Sing, a feminist murder mystery set in the North Carolina marshlands of the 1950s and 1960s. Inspired by the book, the song is fundamentally an effort to stay true to its story, era, and characters. For example, Swift aims to reflect the historical moment by only incorporating the instruments that would have been available in the 1950s. Additionally, told from the perspective of the book/movie’s protagonist (Kya), lyrically  “Carolina” focuses on capturing and recreating the protagonist’s isolation and alienation. 

Like many great writers, Swift aims to provide a lens into the mind of an alienated character— or someone who is clearly on the outside of social gatherings and norms, does not see the world the way the rest of society does, and therefore is incapable of forming connections with others. Kya fits the profile David Brooks recently described of people who are “not necessarily loners; they are failed joiners” and, failing to join “realize how much they crave the recognition of the world when that recognition is withheld, and when it is, they crawl inward,” preventing connection. 

It’s difficult for a song (or any art) to create this sense of alienation in a first person narrative, because the structure invites the audience to forge  a connection with the narrator. For example, T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred  Prufrock” explicitly combats its speaker’s sense of isolation through its narrative structure. Though the poem is told from the perspective of J Alfred Prufrock, who is profoundly alienated from others – for example,  he observes on the outside as “In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo,” and describes how he “Watched the smoke the rises from the pipe/ Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows,” demonstrating his sense of exclusion and isolation from typical social structures – nevertheless Prufrock is on the “inside” in the interaction between the speaker and reader. The poem’s epigraph – lines from The Inferno that translate to, “If I but thought that my response were made/ to one perhaps returning to the world,/ this tongue of flame would cease to flicker./ But since, up from these depths, no one has yet/ returned alive, if what I hear is true,/ I answer without fear of being shamed” – demonstrate that Prufrock, while he might not be part of most groups, is not going to be alienated or keep secrets from the reader, developing a connection that, in turn, limits the characterization of Prufrock as socially isolated. 

But Swift, in an attempt to stay true to Where the Crawdads Sing and portray her song’s narrator as profoundly alienated from the rest of society (including from the listener), rejects Eliot’s structure. She hits the listeners over the head with Kya’s isolated sense of self. By line three of the song she establishes, “Lost was I born, lonesome I came/ Lonesome I’ll always stay,” though the narrator views this loneliness as freedom  – contrary to how most listeners, and most of her society would, which further establishes that she’s different –  claiming “For years I roamed/ Free as these birds, light as whispers.” 

Additionally, Swift syntax creates a divide between the audience and narrator. As the song proceeds in broken fragments, it’s difficult for the listener to understand the narrative and the meaning Kya gives to cryptic phrases, like “And she’s in my dreams/ Into the mist, into the clouds/ Don’t leave.” Unlike Eliot, Swift doesn’t give her audience full unrestricted access to the mind of her narrator, establishing a division between them that further cements Kya’s characterization as an isolated outsider. The song concludes with the line, “It's between me, the sand, and the sea,” highlighting that the listener is not privy to all that Kya knows and feels in order to ensure that Kya is still viewed as fundamentally alone and different. 

The techniques Swift relies on to characterize her narrator as alienated are nothing new; Great writers have been using these same strategies for ages to describe socially isolated narrators. For example, Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, narrated in the first person like “Carolina,” doesn’t give the reader full access to the worldview of its narrator Lucy Snowe. Lucy, like Kya, views her profound loneliness as freedom, stating “Peril, loneliness, and uncertain future, are not oppressive evils… so long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings” which create a sense that she’s different from even the reader. Additionally, Bronte has Snowe keep secrets from the reader, in the same way that Swift gives her listeners only limited access to Kya’s internal monologue, further separating the narrator from the reader to characterize Lucy’s isolation.  

Likewise, the fragmentary syntax of “Carolina” mirrors Albert Camus’ style in The Stranger, another narrative that aims to create a divide between narrator and reader in order to describe the alienation of its narrator. The book begins with choppy phrases that reflect the narrator's perspective but don’t seem to make sense to the reader: “Maman died today.  Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: ‘mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.’ That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.” Like in “Carolina,” this syntax prevents the audience from fully understanding the narrative of the narrator’s mind and connecting with the mental world of the speaker, establishing the narrator as an isolated and weird character who is difficult to relate to.  

Thus, with “Carolina,” Swift sets herself among the ranks of Camus and Bronte by successfully characterizing an isolated and alienated first-person narrator. Her unparalleled skill in literary craftsmanship is one of the many reasons she deserves literally every accolade (and, if you agree, you can vote for Taylor to win a VMA).