The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

“He was scarcely more than four feet tall and he wore a ragged, dusty coat that reached only to his knees. His crooked little legs seemed too thin to carry the weight of his great warped chest and the hump that sat on his shoulders. He had a very large head, with deep-set blue eyes and a sharp little mouth. His face was soft and sassy—at the moment his pale skin was yellowed by dust and there were lavender shadows beneath his eyes.”

McCullers uses imagery throughout her stories to amplify the setting and characters. She also draws connections between the identity and emotions of her characters and their physical appearance. Cousin Lymon’s frail frame, tired appearance, and poor health symbolize his need to depend on others. Meanwhile, his manipulative nature emerges in his “soft and sassy” face, foreshadowing his tendency to pit people against each other for his own entertainment.

“And within an hour the news had swept through the town. It was a fierce and sickly tale the town built up that day. In it were all the things which cause the heart to shiver—a hunchback, a midnight burial in the swamp […] all told in hushed voices and repeated with some fresh and weird detail.”

“The Ballad of the Sad Café” takes place in a small, rural Southern town where everyone knows each other. McCullers captures this by detailing how quickly stories are spread and skewed by the townspeople. This rumor mill also highlights the mundane nature of their lives; townspeople instill fantasy and spectacle into rumors to make them more exciting. The tale of Cousin Lymon’s arrival becomes a Southern Gothic story within the novella, exaggerating his physicality as grotesque and full of horror.

“Yes, all in all, she was considered a good doctor. Her hands, though very large and bony, had a light touch about them. She possessed great imagination and used hundreds of different cures. In the face of the most dangerous and extraordinary treatment she did not hesitate, and no disease was so terrible but what she would undertake to cure it.”

Miss Amelia is a leader in her town, a well-known and trusted person. She cares for the people around her, acting as a doctor and helping people with ailments, often for no charge. This demonstrates not only her willingness to help others but also her self-confidence. This makes her later capitulation to Cousin Lymon all the more shocking and seemingly out of character.

“Even the richest, greediest old rascal will behave himself, insulting no one in a proper café. And poor people look about them gratefully and pinch up the salt in a dainty and modest manner. For the atmosphere of a proper café implies these qualities: fellowship, the satisfaction of the belly, and a certain gaiety and grace of behavior.”

The café in “The Ballad of the Sad Café” is crucial to the townspeople because it offers them a respite from work and the struggle to survive. In the café, they have a place to socialize, removed briefly from the hardships of life. The importance of the café, not just to Miss Amelia and Cousin Lymon, but to the town itself, makes the eventual betrayal of Miss Amelia and the closing of the café a consequential event for the entire community.

“First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons—but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries.”

McCullers often considers how love is pursued and how it is maintained. In these stories, love can also be a site of isolation, as characters, even those in relationships, feel alone. McCullers posits that each relationship has a necessarily unequal power dynamic between a lover and a beloved; one controls, manipulates, or otherwise abuses the other.

“Miss Amelia looked over these fine gifts and opened the box of candy, for she was hungry. The rest of the presents she judged shrewdly for a moment to sum up their value—then she put them in the counter out for sale.”

Miss Amelia rejects gender conformity; her wardrobe, physical strength, and attitude toward gifts have stereotypically masculine characteristics. Miss Amelia runs multiple businesses. She keeps a bare room, giving most, if not all, of her possessions to Cousin Lymon as lover’s presents. When she was married to Marvin Macy, he tried to win her over with gifts that she did not value and sold. Marvin Macy’s inability to woo Miss Amelia through conventional means reflects her unwillingness to follow societal expectations of her gender.

“And later, when horrifying rumors concerning Marvin Macy reach the town, Miss Amelia was very pleased. For the true character of Marvin Macy finally revealed itself, once he had freed himself of his love. He became a criminal whose picture and whose name were in all the papers in the state.”

In the stories, love is often depicted as having an unusual impact on the characters, making them act against their nature. In “The Ballad of the Sad Café,” Marvin Macy demonstrates this principle by changing his evil ways to win over Miss Amelia. When their marriage falls apart, and he leaves, he returns to his morally corrupt ways, showing his true nature.

“That was one of the ways in which she showed her love for him. He had her confidence in the most delicate and vital matters. He alone knew where she kept the chart that showed where certain barrels of whisky were buried on a piece of property nearby. He alone had access to her bank-book and the key to the cabinet of curios.”

Like Marvin Macy, Miss Amelia also finds that love has an illogical influence on her. When she falls in love with Cousin Lymon, she treats him differently from how she treats anyone else. She coddles him, giving him whatever he wants and entrusting him with her most precious possessions and secrets. Usually, she is guarded and independent, but she will do whatever she can to keep Cousin Lymon happy and by her side.

“He and the man stared at each other, and it was not the look of two strangers meeting for the first time and swiftly summing up each other. It was a peculiar stare they exchanged between them, like the look of two criminals who recognize each other.”

When Cousin Lymon and Marvin Macy meet for the first time, there is an immediate connection between them, even if Marvin Macy initially spurns Cousin Lymon. They are both devious and thus aligned. This creates the love triangle that rests at the center of this story, although it is not Miss Amelia but Cousin Lymon who forms the peak of the triangle. Miss Amelia wants Cousin Lymon, but he is immediately besotted with Marvin Macy, who understands Cousin Lymon’s worldview. Cousin Lymon chooses Marvin Macy over Miss Amelia, driving the conflict of the plot.

“The hunchback was smiling at Marvin Macy with an entreaty that was near desperation. At first Marvin Macy paid no attention to him, and when he did finally glance at the hunchback it was without any appreciation whatsoever.”

Cousin Lymon’s relationships with Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy highlight how these two characters are foils of each other. While Miss Amelia will do anything to keep Cousin Lymon happy and with her, Marvin Macy does not want anything to do with Cousin Lymon and strives to drive him away. This also highlights the irrationality of love, as Cousin Lymon reacts similarly to both of these people, committing to them at different times and following them everywhere.

“Any number of wicked things could be listed against him, but quite apart from these crimes there was about him a secret meanness that clung to him almost like a smell. Another thing—he never sweated, not even in August, and that surely is a sign worth pondering over.”

McCullers cultivates Marvin Macy’s identity as an evil character through the use of figurative language. Here, McCullers uses a simile to describe his meanness as a smell, like something that lingers and can be foul. She also highlights that he does not sweat, no matter how bad the heat is; his body is unnatural and snake-like, reflecting his disturbing character.

“She did not warm her backside modestly, lifting her skirt only an inch or so, as do most women when in public. There was not a grain of modesty about Miss Amelia, and she frequently seemed to forget altogether that there were men in the room.”

Miss Amelia refuses to allow the view or presence of men to influence her behavior, opposite to how women were socially expected to react in the US South in the 1950s. In this instance, as she warms herself by the fire, she pays more attention to her bodily needs than to potential male onlookers.

“Cousin Lymon had a restless day, and his little face was drawn and tightened with excitement. He put himself up a lunch, and set out to find the ground hog—within an hour he returned, and lunch eaten, and said that the ground hog had seen his shadow and there was to be bad weather ahead.”

The groundhog foreshadows the result of the fight between Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy, which will end with Cousin Lymon’s betrayal of Miss Amelia. Cousin Lymon’s story about the groundhog’s shadow—folklore that typically predicts bad weather—also hints at the eventual unravelling of Miss Amelia.

“The music will swell until at last it seems that the sound does not come from the twelve men on the gang, but from the earth itself, or the wide sky. It is music that causes the heart to broaden and the listener to grow cold with ecstasy and fright. Then slowly the music will sink down until at last there remains one lonely voice, then a great hoarse breath, the sun, the sound of the picks in the silence.”

“The Ballad of the Sad Café” ends with the image of a chain gang singing while they work. McCullers’s description of the music as it rises up and then slowly fades closely mirrors Miss Amelia’s experience in love. Miss Amelia found love, felt the joy and the pain of it, and then is left alone. Like the singer, she ends the story lonely, worn down, with not much left to give.

“And with a circling, sinking away feeling like the one that often came to her just before she dropped off to sleep on the nights when she had over-practiced. Like those weary half-dreams that buzzed and carried her out into their own whirligig space.”

McCullers uses descriptive language throughout the stories of this collection to bring the emotional conflict of the characters to life. In “Wunderkind,” the protagonist, Frances, struggles with the thought that she may not amount to the talent people believe her to be. It is a disorienting anxiety, which McCullers amplifies with such words as “circling,” “sinking,” and “whirligig.”

“She felt that the marrows of her bones were hollow and there was no blood left in her. Her heart that had been springing against her chest all afternoon felt suddenly dead. She saw it gray and limp and shriveled at the edges like an oyster.”

The use of figurative language in “Wunderkind” brings the anxiety and sadness Frances feels to life. By describing her heart as “gray and limp and shriveled at the edges like an oyster,” McCullers provides an image that reflects Frances's emotional state. She feels as though her connection to music is shriveling up and her ability to instill emotion into her playing is gone. McCullers takes these qualities and makes a palpable connection with the image of an oyster.

“The room was crowded, as this was the third day of the season and all the hotels in the town were full. In the dining room bouquets of August roses scattered their petals on the white table linen and from the adjoining bar came a warm, drunken wash of voices.”

In “The Jockey,” McCullers creates a contrast between the emotions of Bitsy Barlow and his surroundings. While Bitsy feels alone and angered by the injury to his friend, the room around him is described as celebratory, with people having fun and enjoying each other’s company. This makes his isolation more apparent.

“Sylvester shrugged one of his loose, heavy shoulders. The rich man sopped up some water that had been spilled on the tablecloth, and they didn’t speak until the waiter came to clear away.”

“The Jockey” illustrates the complex power dynamics of Bitsy Barlow’s world through his interaction with the three rich men who care little about him or his injured friend. When Bitsy confronts them to shame them into showing sympathy, they refuse. Sylvester’s relaxed posture reflects his comfortable sense of control over Bitsy and men like him. The men’s calm wait for the server mirrors their relationship with Bitsy—another underling whose work they observe and take for granted.

“He could not make out what was wrong in his relations with her or why his feelings were so mixed. To begin with, she was a great globe-trotter, and her conversations were incongruously seasoned with references to far-fetched places.”

In “Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland,” Mr. Brook is at first stymied by Madame Zilensky divergent and “incongruously” self-referential conversation. Her many references are both impressive, making him think of her as a “globe-trotter” and also off-putting in their strangeness, which he views as “wrong.” His confusion over whether to be wowed or put off by her is part of what prompts Mr. Brook to confront her about her lies.

“Never afterward could Mr. Brook forget the face of Madame Zilensky at that moment. In her eyes there was astonishment, dismay, and a sort of cornered horror. She had the look of one who watches his whole interior world split open and disintegrate.”

Being confronted makes Madam Zilensky panic completely. Her lies are central to her identity and give her life purpose; being caught out could thus destroy her as a person, making her “whole interior world split open and disintegrate.” Mr. Brook sees the horror in her face and understands that to force her to admit her deceptions would ruin her.

“The prelude was as gaily iridescent as a prism in a morning room. The first voice of the fugue, an announcement pure and solitary, was repeated intermingling with a second voice, and again repeated within an elaborate frame, the multiple music, horizontal and serene, flowed with unhurried majesty.”

Music plays an important role in many of the stories of this collection. In “The Sojourner,” it reminds John Ferris of the love he once had in his life, and how much he wishes he had a similar love now. The music’s intermingling voices symbolize the harmonious family relationships Ferris observes in the home of his ex-wife, Elizabeth, and lacks in his own. The simile that the piece’s prelude is “as gaily iridescent as a prism in a morning room” evokes light and brightness, showing the positive influence—and even slightly age-defying effects—of this kind of love.

“The midnight bistros gleamed on the wet pavements. As always after a transocean flight the change of continents was too sudden. New York at morning, this midnight Paris. Ferris glimpsed the disorder of his life: the succession of cities, of transitory loves; and time, the sinister glissando of the years, time always.”

John Ferris’s travels isolate and discombobulate him; going from city to city makes him feels like a man out of time, caught between day happening in New York and night falling in Paris. The imagery connects to Ferris’s newfound desire for stability—he is no longer capable of coping with “the disorder of his life” and has decided to commit to his partner rather than continuing with a succession of “transitory loves.”

“The cottage was modern, almost too white and new on the narrow plot of yard. In summer the grass was soft and bright and Martin carefully tended a flower border and a rose trellis. But during the cold, fallow months the yard was bleak and the cottage seemed naked.”

The description of Martin Meadows’s cottage reflects his relationship with Emily in “A Domestic Dilemma.” Moving to New York from Alabama has made their lives colder both literally, in terms of weather, and figuratively, as Emily is deprived of her former support network of friends and family. The house has the potential for “soft grass” and a “rose trellis,” but this kind of idyllic home imagery involves effort and “careful tending.” Even with this tremendous expenditure of effort, the house is starkly “white” and “naked,” with the family’s deep problems exposed. Emily’s alcohol use has transformed their home from a place of summer brightness to winter bleakness.