Many of Carson McCullers’ stories are composed with deep compassion for the lonely soul. Her characters are often eccentric misfits that feel disconnected and misunderstood in their communities. In the course of McCullers’ masterful storytelling, her characters often find solace in the company of other lost souls, revealing the all-consuming power and complexity of the human relationship.
McCullers’ novella, The Ballad of the Sad Café, is a multi-faceted jewel of literature, rich with insight on the human condition. It maps the progression of a strange love triangle of freaks in a tiny, depressed town in the Deep South.
Miss Amelia, the story’s tragic heroine, is a strong-horse entrepreneur that stands 6’ 2” and fights like a man. She lives a solitary life, spending all her time working as a liquor-maker, a shop owner, real estate owner and a volunteer doctor. At first, her heart is encased with lead—she is weak to no one, and spares no mercy. Until one day a hunchback with a sociable and mischievous spirit named Lymon sweeps into town and claims to be her cousin, making him her only living relative. This is the beginning of a new life for Miss Amelia, one that is rich with love and community. The hunchback comes to live with her and she tends to him like a child. And soon after, a café is spontaneously sprung into life at her store. Soon, her store is molded into a gathering place for all the dejected and poverty-stricken town inhabitants that work at the mill.
In one passage, McCullers reveals why and how this magical place came to be, a place where one could drink, eat and be merry for very little. Again, she writes with immense compassion for the townspeople that are locked into poverty:
“All useful things have a price and are bought only with money, and that is the way the world is run. You know without having to reason about it the price of a bale of cotton, or a quart of molasses. But no value has been put on the human life; it is given to us free and taken without being paid for. What is it worth? If you look around, at times the value may be little or nothing at all. Often after you have sweated and tried and things are still not better for you, there comes a feeling deep down in the soul that you are not worth much.”
But at the café, “for a few hours at least, the deep bitter knowing that you are not worth much in this world could be laid low.”
Unfortunately, this place of love and community succumbs to a tragic ending. Long ago, when Miss Amelia was a young girl, she was married for six days to a man named Marvin Macy. Marvin Macy was born to neglectful parents and lived his life robbing, bullying and womanizing. But Marvin Macy doted heavily on Miss Amelia, despite her awkwardness and vowed to live as a decent man for her. But as soon as Miss Amelia married Marvin Macy, she rejected him cruelly and they were divorced short after. Marvin Macy left town swearing revenge—and does return, unleashing chaos and stealing all that she loves.
Without giving any more details about the plot, The Ballad of the Sad Café explores themes of unrequited love and betrayal through the interactions of her artfully fleshed-out characters. I recommend this book to anyone who has had their heart broken by anyone they loved unconditionally. To love at all is dually a promise for heart-blooming joy and a risk for an avalanche of pain for the lover.
Besides the characters and the plot, The Ballad of the Sad Café is sumptuous in its writing style. McCullers’ language is rich with color and poetic lyricism. Always, a Southern drawl is sensed in the slopes and streams of her sentences. She weaves swamp-imagery throughout her narrative, creating an atmosphere sweltering with a hot-bath of smells and sensations. McCullers writes, “Even in the early morning there was a sticky sultriness in the atmosphere, the wind carried the rotten smell of the swamp, and the delicate shrill mosquitoes webbed the green millpond.”
Besides the characters and the plot, The Ballad of the Sad Café is sumptuous in its writing style. McCullers’ language is rich with color and poetic lyricism. Always, a Southern drawl is sensed in the slopes and streams of her sentences. She weaves swamp-imagery throughout her narrative, creating an atmosphere sweltering with a hot-bath of smells and sensations. McCullers writes, “Even in the early morning there was a sticky sultriness in the atmosphere, the wind carried the rotten smell of the swamp, and the delicate shrill mosquitoes webbed the green millpond.”
Her metaphors are unique and astute. In one passage, she describes the voice of Cousin Lymon:
“His voice was just like the voices of children who squat patiently over those tiny little holes in the ground where doodlebugs are thought to live, poking the hole with a broom straw, and calling plaintively: Doodlebug, Doodlebug—fly away home.”
Anybody who loves to read and write should adopt Carson McCullers work for a while to explore and emulate. She truly is a master of the English language. She bloomed bright in the literary world for a short span of time, but her stories will live forever, speaking multitudes about what it means to be human in a heart-breaking world.
“His voice was just like the voices of children who squat patiently over those tiny little holes in the ground where doodlebugs are thought to live, poking the hole with a broom straw, and calling plaintively: Doodlebug, Doodlebug—fly away home.”
Anybody who loves to read and write should adopt Carson McCullers work for a while to explore and emulate. She truly is a master of the English language. She bloomed bright in the literary world for a short span of time, but her stories will live forever, speaking multitudes about what it means to be human in a heart-breaking world.
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