I’ve been trying to work out what Carson McCullers’ The Ballad of the Sad Café is about. I spent a while pondering over who the hero and villain were, because every character comes across as mean in their own way. But I guess that’s what makes the story realistic: humans are fallible.
I’ve come to the conclusion it’s about love and togetherness. The characters who suffer the most are those who have felt loneliness to the point of grief: Miss Amelia, Marvin Macy, and Cousin Lymon. All three characters are rejected by the person they love.
I think McCullers is trying to tell us that loneliness is the worst form of living. In the final pages, the juxtaposition of Miss Amelia – dejected and isolated – with the choral singing of the chain gang, seems to say this.
‘And those [Miss Amelia’s] grey 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.’
‘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. [..] And what kind of gang is this that can make such music? Just twelve mortal men, seven of them black and five of them white boys from the county. Just twelve mortal men who are together.’ (My bold.)
Is loneliness a worse form of punishment than being imprisoned, and being made to work in the chain gang? Perhaps loneliness is a type of prison itself. The chain gang sing in unison, and Miss Amelia is in her boarded-up café, alone.
I’m a big fan of McCullers, and her work seems to consistently highlight the condition of loneliness. (You can read my other post about her work, here.) Perhaps The Ballad of the Sad Café is a reminder to us to reach out to people who are alone, and who need support and love, regardless of their fallibility.
the isolation book club 