"There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which has lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto... Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being loved is intolerable to many." (25-26)
I enjoyed the fact that McCullers is convinced that romantic relationships are split between the lover and the beloved. When applied to the average relationship this appears to be a plausible assumption. Anyone who has been in a committed relationship knows that relationships are always growing and changing. The amount of affection each person in the relationship shares is not always equal. McCullers apparently felt that this was always the case and she crafted her characters to fit within these parameters. The three main characters are locked in a struggle to determine who will be loved by who and over the course of the story all of them switch roles from lover to beloved or viceverse. Doesn't this feel a bit jaded? I enjoyed the plot that derived from this idea of the lover versus the beloved but in the end, it seems that there isn't room for lasting happiness in a world of changing affections, bound by this dychotomy of love.
Questions: Can this idea be stretched to encompass the townsfolk and the Sad cafe? Is there any hope for lasting love according to McCullers' idea?
Showing posts with label McCullers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McCullers. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Gender Reversal
"There was not a grain of modesty about Miss Amelia, and she frequently seemed t to forget altogether that there men in the room. Noe as she stood warming herself, her red dress was pulled up quite high in the back so that a piece of her strong, hairy thigh could be seen by anyone who cared to look at it." (59)
The Gender reversals in this text were so striking that I decided they must have some importance. Mrs. Amelia is portrayed as very masculine. She is over 6 feet tall, has strong hairy legs, smokes pipes regularly, and finds it entertaining to feel her own biceps! On the flip side Cousin Lymon is sickly, small, gossipy, and clearly portrayed as feminine. Marvin Macy is caught somewhere in the middle. He is not overtly feminine, but certain actions he takes could lead us to see a slight reversal. For instance, signing over all of his possessions to Miss Amelia can be seen as a dowry of sorts. This gender reversal also plays into the love triangle these characters are caught in. It almost seems that even strong "male-like" characters are shown as weaker, or more womanlike when in love. The above example of Marvin Macy is one such case. Miss Amelia's character also experiences change when she is in love with Cousin Lymon. Before Lymon abandoned Miss Amelia, she has always taken firm courses of actions. However, for the first time she is pursuing multiple courses of action. She allows Marvin into the house after she has sworn not to. Also Amelia begins wearing more feminine clothes when Lymon abandons her. What do you think the importance of these gender reversals are? And what do they say about the message of the story?
The Gender reversals in this text were so striking that I decided they must have some importance. Mrs. Amelia is portrayed as very masculine. She is over 6 feet tall, has strong hairy legs, smokes pipes regularly, and finds it entertaining to feel her own biceps! On the flip side Cousin Lymon is sickly, small, gossipy, and clearly portrayed as feminine. Marvin Macy is caught somewhere in the middle. He is not overtly feminine, but certain actions he takes could lead us to see a slight reversal. For instance, signing over all of his possessions to Miss Amelia can be seen as a dowry of sorts. This gender reversal also plays into the love triangle these characters are caught in. It almost seems that even strong "male-like" characters are shown as weaker, or more womanlike when in love. The above example of Marvin Macy is one such case. Miss Amelia's character also experiences change when she is in love with Cousin Lymon. Before Lymon abandoned Miss Amelia, she has always taken firm courses of actions. However, for the first time she is pursuing multiple courses of action. She allows Marvin into the house after she has sworn not to. Also Amelia begins wearing more feminine clothes when Lymon abandons her. What do you think the importance of these gender reversals are? And what do they say about the message of the story?
Monday, February 20, 2012
Miss Amelia
"Miss Amelia let her hair grow ragged, and it was turning gray. Her face lengthened, and the great muscles of her body shrank until she was thin as old maids are thin when they go crazy. And those gray eyes -- slowly day by day they were more crossed, and it was as though they sought each other out to exchange a little glance of grief and lonely recognition. She was not pleasant to listen to; her tongue had sharpened terribly....Miss Amelia hired a Cheehaw carpenter and had him board up the premises, and there in those closed rooms she has remained ever since." (Last page)
In the course of the story, we come to find that Miss Amelia is a established and flourishing store-owner, businesswoman, carpenter, doctor, whiskey brewer, restaurant owner, cook, boxer, wrestler and cotton grower. By any time period's standards her success and abilities are outstanding for either male or female, almost super-human (trying new remedies on oneself while figuring out which organ is being affected, for example). My questions repeatedly throughout the story were: How strange is the character of Miss Amelia to the reading audience of the time it was written? Did women with this sort of power really exist in this time period, given the social restraints? Was she a 6 foot 2 super-hero?
I chose the end of the piece because, given her incredible attributes, she is still conquered in the end. It can be easily argued she is the backbone and life of the entire town through her cafe, but she is still left shacked up alone. She treats the hunchback with nothing but pure kindness, and yet he burns everything of hers he can. Does Miss Amelia's defeat imply women like her, in her time period, cannot make it through life without being "cross-eyed" somehow?
Hunter
Rumor has it..
"Now this was the day that the rumor started- the rumor so terrible that the town and all the country about were stunned by it. The rumor was started by a weaver called Merlie Ryan" (Carson, 13)
Like Faulkner's A Rose for Emily a good portion of A Ballad of the Sad Cafe is told from the perspective of the townspeople. Most of this information is gathered from events that the townspeople have witnessed, but other information is fabricated with in their minds and then spread to be the truth. The particular rumor mentioned above is immediately proven false by the narrator informing the audience that the story was spread by Merlie Ryan who has "the three day-malaria" and started the rumor in his fever. However, like all decent rumors it caught like wildfire and brought the town to action against Miss Amelia.
Rumors can be a powerful tool in a narrative. They can help progress the plot by brining about action and they cause curiosity and raise doubt within the audience. Yet, unlike Faulkner's tale, Carson gives the audience a glimpse into the main characters life. She explains Miss Amelia's character and her actions in detail though his/her own words, not the townspeople. Thus, taking away the effect the rumors could have had on the audience.
Question:
So, What role do rumors play in the story? What role do the townspeople play in this story?
Like Faulkner's A Rose for Emily a good portion of A Ballad of the Sad Cafe is told from the perspective of the townspeople. Most of this information is gathered from events that the townspeople have witnessed, but other information is fabricated with in their minds and then spread to be the truth. The particular rumor mentioned above is immediately proven false by the narrator informing the audience that the story was spread by Merlie Ryan who has "the three day-malaria" and started the rumor in his fever. However, like all decent rumors it caught like wildfire and brought the town to action against Miss Amelia.
Rumors can be a powerful tool in a narrative. They can help progress the plot by brining about action and they cause curiosity and raise doubt within the audience. Yet, unlike Faulkner's tale, Carson gives the audience a glimpse into the main characters life. She explains Miss Amelia's character and her actions in detail though his/her own words, not the townspeople. Thus, taking away the effect the rumors could have had on the audience.
Question:
So, What role do rumors play in the story? What role do the townspeople play in this story?
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?
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?
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