95 Carson McCullers’ The Ballad of the Sad Café
In This Chapter
Author Background
McCullers’ life was fascinating and complicated. Born in Columbus, Georgia, McCullers moved to New York and lived in an artist’s colonies at both Yaddo and Brooklyn. Biographers have situated McCullers as bisexual, as was her husband, Reeves, and have demonstrated that both engaged in same-sex relationships while married.
Much of McCullers’ writing can be placed in the genre of Southern gothic, which “mark[s] a Freudian return of the repressed: the region’s historical realities take concrete forms in the shape of ghosts that highlight all that has been unsaid in the official version of southern history” (Bjerre). Indeed, The Ballad of the Sad Café is usefully placed in the context of the South in the early part of the 20th Century: changing sexual mores are a part of the text, as is the place of the marginalized (racially, sexually) in relationship to the normative majority (hint: follow the many uses of “they” in the text, which generally describes an angry crowd of townspeople).
Background on The Ballad of the Sad Café
Carson McCullers’ novella The Ballad of the Sad Café was written in 1943.
McCullers’ story centers on Miss Amelia, “a solitary woman […] with bones and muscles like a man” (2). Miss Amelia is placed in relationship with Cousin Lymon, described as “soft and sassy,” with “pale skin yellowed by dust” (9). While both Miss Amelia and Cousin Lymon complicate normative gender presentation, also in the text is Marvin Macy, a strapping and traditionally handsome Rhett Butler type to whom Miss Amelia was married.
Further examination of the two’s marriage, however, demonstrates its unsuccessful nature. “A groom is in a sorry fix when he is unable to bring his well-beloved bride to bed with him,” McCullers writes, and thus further complicates inherited notions of male-female courtship and marriage.
Critical Context
The Ballad of the Sad Café has received surprisingly little critical attention. Authors have argued that the work is usefully interpreted according to “performative genders” (in other words, one is not born into a certain gender role, but rather adopts that role’s assumed behaviors), especially in the non-normative Miss Amelia and cousin Lymon.
Other critical positions argue for a reversal of the traditional fairy tale (again Miss Amelia, her theoretically handsome prince, and her eventual far-from-happy ending), a study of the social demand for conformity, and that McCullers’ text makes reference to her own personal life.
Read It Here
You can borrow and read the full text of Carson McCullers’ The Ballad of the Sad Café by visiting Internet Archive and signing up for a free account: https://archive.org/details/balladofsadcaf00mccu
Hear It Here
Hearing a text read out loud can give us access into the author’s rhythms, emphases, and emotions. Check out this linked video for a rare opportunity to hear McCullers read from her novella: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qeN-eOXzSs&t=12s
Close Reading Exercise: Lymon’s First Appearance
Here, you’re asked to close read Cousin Lymon, specifically as he first appears in The Ballad of the Sad Café. Remember that the essence of close reading is quoting and explaining. Use details from the text (but keep those details short and precise), then explain those details. One way to succeed at close reading–keep asking (and answering) “what’s the effect?” So, find where Lymon first appears, and let us know what you think.
The following discussion questions should provide a starting point for meaningful conversations about the complexities and thought-provoking themes in Carson McCullers’ The Ballad of the Sad Café. These questions can also be used as writing prompts for individual student reflection.
1. ON LOCATION: McCullers’ story is set in a small Southern town. Why might she have set the story there and what does the text’s setting lend its themes and characters?
2. ON GENDER PRESENTATION: Comment on Miss Amelia and Cousin Lymon as gendered subjects. How does each fulfill (or not) what is commonly expected of their respective genders?
3. ON TRIANGLES: Much of the text’s action revolves around the love triangle of Amelia, Cousin Lymon, and Marvin. Who do you think loves who and why? Is Miss Amelia functioning to stop anxiety that might emanate from a homosocial/homosexual relationship between Marvin and Lymon?
4. ON THE FIGHT: What do you make of the final fistfight between Amelia and Cousin Lymon? Does this fit with their characters as they have previously been created? Does anything in McCullers’ characterization of the fight stand out to you?
Sources
Bjerre, Thomas Ærvold. “Southern Gothic Literature.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature, June 28, 2017, https://oxfordre.com/literature/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-304.
“Carson McCullers read from The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1958).” YouTube, uploaded by guyy, 4 Nov. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qeN-eOXzSs&t=12s
McCullers, Carson. “The Ballad of the Sad Café.” The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories. Internet Archive, 1971, pp. 3-72, uploaded by Phillip L., 25 Jan. 2010, https://archive.org/details/balladofsadcaf00mccu/page/n9/mode/2up
Southern Gothic is an artistic subgenre of fiction, country music, film, theatre, and television that are heavily influenced by Gothic elements and the American South. Southern Gothic particularly focuses on the South's history of slavery, racism, fear of the outside world, violence, a fixation with the grotesque, and a tension between realistic and supernatural elements.
A novella is defined as a work of narrative fiction that runs between 20,000 and 50,000 words (the average is around 30,000). Once a story exceeds 50,000 words, it is entering novel territory.
A theme is a central topic, subject, or message within a narrative.
