The Sad Café and The South

      "When a person is as contrary in every single respect as she was and when the sins of a person have amounted to such a point that they can hardly be remembered all at once- then this person plainly requires a special judgment (14)."


      I feel the need to take a moment in this post to gush about how much I loved the narration of this story; a mix of poetry and understated prose reminiscent of my grandparents. Having only recently begun identifying myself as a Southerner, Carson McCullers's descriptions of nature and the lives of Southerners long gone incite in me a strange feeling of being at home, or perhaps homesick for something I do not understand.
     That being said, I am perplexed by Amelia. She is defiant both of the expectations for her sex at the time and the social niceties observed by most Southerners during the era, however the people of the town seem to treat her with respect and, especially after she opens the café, a certain fondness. Much of the townspeople's sympathy for Amelia stems from their awareness that she was raised solely by her father and had been strange to begin with. They use the same logic in their treatment of Marvin Macy, reasoning that his abusive parents had caused his evil nature and, as the quote above suggests, nothing could be done about him and therefore he would have to be judged differently than everyone else. Cousin Lymon and his hunchback, strange habits and tendency to illicit arguments between friends are also accepted on the basis of his strangeness. I find it ironic that Amelia and Cousin Lymon are responsible for starting the café, where politeness, pleasantry and fellowship are unsaid rules, however they and Marvin Macy alone are allowed to turn the café into a place of tension, mischief and even a wrestling ring. It is as if the culture of the town is both defined by and eventually destroyed by these three enigmatic figures. I am probably making a far too general statement here, but a similar assessment could be made about the South as a whole. The troubles and peculiarities of the South are what define its character and make the ideal of Southern hospitality more emphatic, or perhaps at times more ironic. 


Discussion question: Why does Amelia develop a fondness for Cousin Lymon and allow him to live with her? Furthermore, why does she give him everything she worked so hard to gain and ultimately allow him to destroy her?