Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Essay on Carson McCullers’ The Ballad of the Sad Café
By:
English 101: ICE
Due: December 5, 2013
The Freak, that human anomaly has long held fascination in life and in literature. From the southern gothic grotesquerie of Carson McCullers’ Ballad of the Sad Café, the freak has been marveled over, and pointed at. Alterity is certainly a facet to the world of the grotesque. Alterity signifies uniqueness that cannot be conceptualized, or comprehended. McCullers’ vision, and connection to the southern grotesque is a fiction of the existential anguish, and The Ballad of the Sad Café is a powerful novella that goes beyond just fictional reading and is the allusion of the other and grotesque. In The Ballad of the Sad Café, the status of alterity isn’t just a minor issue; in fact the story’s central thematic statement is that because of the characters’ gender, race, or physical distortion, human beings have to face loneliness and spiritual isolation, thus being stuck in their alterity. In order to demonstrate that this theme functions in the story in this way, first we will examine how McCullers sympathizes characters as devices of isolation and alienation. They are oppressed in order to portray the requirements of personal interaction for all humans. Next, the setting of the story builds up towards the idea of the town full of misfits and how the café is a symbol of rebelling against Amelia’s inner loneliness and isolation. Finally, the description of Amelia evokes a reversed sense of her gender and negates her femininity, isolating her from our idea of what constitutes a woman. McCullers is not particularly subtle in her obscurity of gender roles. The Ballad of the Sad Café treats human problems with sympathy and understanding, which can also be plucked from the author’s life.1
This Isolation manages to heighten the drama in The Ballad of the Sad Café as the narrative progresses to its dreary endpoint. McCullers depicts the state
By:
English 101: ICE
Due: December 5, 2013
The Freak, that human anomaly has long held fascination in life and in literature. From the southern gothic grotesquerie of Carson McCullers’ Ballad of the Sad Café, the freak has been marveled over, and pointed at. Alterity is certainly a facet to the world of the grotesque. Alterity signifies uniqueness that cannot be conceptualized, or comprehended. McCullers’ vision, and connection to the southern grotesque is a fiction of the existential anguish, and The Ballad of the Sad Café is a powerful novella that goes beyond just fictional reading and is the allusion of the other and grotesque. In The Ballad of the Sad Café, the status of alterity isn’t just a minor issue; in fact the story’s central thematic statement is that because of the characters’ gender, race, or physical distortion, human beings have to face loneliness and spiritual isolation, thus being stuck in their alterity. In order to demonstrate that this theme functions in the story in this way, first we will examine how McCullers sympathizes characters as devices of isolation and alienation. They are oppressed in order to portray the requirements of personal interaction for all humans. Next, the setting of the story builds up towards the idea of the town full of misfits and how the café is a symbol of rebelling against Amelia’s inner loneliness and isolation. Finally, the description of Amelia evokes a reversed sense of her gender and negates her femininity, isolating her from our idea of what constitutes a woman. McCullers is not particularly subtle in her obscurity of gender roles. The Ballad of the Sad Café treats human problems with sympathy and understanding, which can also be plucked from the author’s life.1
This Isolation manages to heighten the drama in The Ballad of the Sad Café as the narrative progresses to its dreary endpoint. McCullers depicts the state