The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Encyclopedia
The Ballad of the Sad Café is a novel by Carson McCullers
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When Miss Amelia, whom the townspeople see as a calculating woman who never acts without reason, takes the stranger into her home, rumors begin to circulate that Miss Amelia has only done so to take what the hunchback had in his suitcase. When the rumors hit their peak, a group of eight men come to her store, sitting outside the steps for the day and waiting to see if something would happen.
Finally, they enter the store all at once and are stunned to see that the hunchback is actually alive and well. With everyone gathered inside, Miss Amelia brings out some liquor and crackers in hospitality, which drives the men into further shock, as they have never witnessed Miss Amelia be hospitable enough to allow drinking inside her home. This is essentially the beginning of the café. Miss Amelia and the hunchback, Cousin Lymon, unintentionally create a new tradition for the town, and the people gather inside at the café on Sunday evenings often until midnight.
It is apparent to the townspeople, with some level of surprise, that Miss Amelia has fallen in love with Cousin Lymon, and has begun to change slightly as time progresses. When the townspeople see this, they relate it to another odd incident in which Miss Amelia was also involved: the issue of her ten-day marriage.
It is revealed that Miss Amelia had been married to a man named Marvin Macy, who was a vicious and cruel character before meeting and falling in love with her. He changed his ways and became good-natured, but reverted back to his old self when his love was rejected after a failed ten-day marriage in which he gave up everything he owned and had with the hopes of having her return his affections. He broke out into a rage, committing a string of felonies before being caught and locked up in the state penitentiary.
When he was released, he returned to the town with the full intention of ruining Miss Amelia's life the way she ruined his. Upon his return, he takes advantage of Cousin Lymon's admiration for him, as he views Macy as a true man, and uses him to crush Miss Amelia's heart, ransack the café, steal her curios and money, and leave Miss Amelia alone by taking Cousin Lymon along with him as he disappears from town.
The novella ends with The Twelve Mortal Men, which is a brief passage of twelve men in a chain-gang, whose actions outlines that of what happened in the lonely rural town, and highlights the themes of loneliness and isolation.
Cousin Lymon
Marvin Macy
Carson McCullers
Carson McCullers was an American writer. She wrote novels, short stories, and two plays, as well as essays and some poetry. Her first novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South...
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Plot
The Ballad of the Sad Café opens on the set of a small, isolated Southern town. The story introduces Miss Amelia, a strong character of both body and mind, who is approached by a hunchbacked man with only a suitcase in hand who claims to be of kin.When Miss Amelia, whom the townspeople see as a calculating woman who never acts without reason, takes the stranger into her home, rumors begin to circulate that Miss Amelia has only done so to take what the hunchback had in his suitcase. When the rumors hit their peak, a group of eight men come to her store, sitting outside the steps for the day and waiting to see if something would happen.
Finally, they enter the store all at once and are stunned to see that the hunchback is actually alive and well. With everyone gathered inside, Miss Amelia brings out some liquor and crackers in hospitality, which drives the men into further shock, as they have never witnessed Miss Amelia be hospitable enough to allow drinking inside her home. This is essentially the beginning of the café. Miss Amelia and the hunchback, Cousin Lymon, unintentionally create a new tradition for the town, and the people gather inside at the café on Sunday evenings often until midnight.
It is apparent to the townspeople, with some level of surprise, that Miss Amelia has fallen in love with Cousin Lymon, and has begun to change slightly as time progresses. When the townspeople see this, they relate it to another odd incident in which Miss Amelia was also involved: the issue of her ten-day marriage.
It is revealed that Miss Amelia had been married to a man named Marvin Macy, who was a vicious and cruel character before meeting and falling in love with her. He changed his ways and became good-natured, but reverted back to his old self when his love was rejected after a failed ten-day marriage in which he gave up everything he owned and had with the hopes of having her return his affections. He broke out into a rage, committing a string of felonies before being caught and locked up in the state penitentiary.
When he was released, he returned to the town with the full intention of ruining Miss Amelia's life the way she ruined his. Upon his return, he takes advantage of Cousin Lymon's admiration for him, as he views Macy as a true man, and uses him to crush Miss Amelia's heart, ransack the café, steal her curios and money, and leave Miss Amelia alone by taking Cousin Lymon along with him as he disappears from town.
The novella ends with The Twelve Mortal Men, which is a brief passage of twelve men in a chain-gang, whose actions outlines that of what happened in the lonely rural town, and highlights the themes of loneliness and isolation.
Main characters
Miss Amelia- Miss Amelia is a wealthy, single woman who inherited a small store from her father after he passed away. She is described in the novella as a tall, dark-skinned, cross-eyed woman, with admirable physical strength. She is also confrontational, starting litigations over the smallest of issues, and is greedy with money. Her ten-day marriage and its disastrous results end in her caring nothing for love until a man who claimed to be her cousin appeared. As the townspeople are intimidated by Miss Amelia, there is an unspoken agreement to never discuss the event in her presence. There is much emphasis placed in her strong personality and physique throughout the novella, and her inability to menstruate, keeps her isolated from other women to a certain degree because she feels that she is unable to connect or understand them. With the presence of Cousin Lymon, however, Miss Amelia changes. Her love for Cousin Lymon makes her happier, and she even tries to be more feminine by sprucing herself up on Sundays, trading her muddy overalls and boots for a red dress. When Miss Amelia's former husband, Marvin Macy, returns to the town after spending time in a penitentiary, her happiness is lost to her own helplessness and misery at being unable to prevent Cousin Lymon from admiring Marvin Macy and eventually siding and leaving with him.
Cousin Lymon
- Lymon is a hunchbacked man who claims to be Miss Amelia's cousin. When he first approaches Miss Amelia at the beginning of the story, he presents his proof of relation to Miss Amelia with name-dropping and an old, faded photograph of two women whose faces are indistinguishable. He displays some histrionic and dependent behavior, always needing to be the center of attention and feeling unbearbly left out if something is being discussed that he does not know about, and incessantly having Miss Amelia fuss over him in private. His need to be the center of attention, however, stems from his desire to become more of a manly character than the dependant person he is. He is also described to be a man who enjoys setting people against one another and watch the resulting arguments and fights that unfold. When Marvin Macy came back to town, Cousin Lymon admired him so much that he resorted to teasing and being cruel towards Miss Amelia to gain Marvin Macy's approval. At the end of the novella, Lymon helps Macy ransack Miss Amelia's café and leaves with him, abandoning Miss Amelia to her own loneliness.
Marvin Macy
- Marvin Macy is a handsome man who possesses a terrible, malicious nature. He is one of seven children who were abandoned by neglectful parents, and one of the only two who survived living alone without someone to look after. He and his brother, Henry Macy, were eventually adopted by a woman in the town, Mrs. Mary Hale, who loved them as if they were her own. His rough upbringing was the cause of Marvin's antisocial and destructive behavior. He ruined young girls, and was violent with animals, chopping off tails of squirrels for his own enjoyment. Though his conduct often brought grief to his adoptive mother and his brother, he appeared not to care until the day he fell in love with Miss Amelia. He changes himself into a respectable, well-mannered man, and marries Miss Amelia, who does not return his love and marries Macy for unexplained reasons of her own instead. Crushed by her rejection, he reverts back to his old, cruel self and goes into a rage that gets him locked up in the local penitentiary. When he is released, he returns to town with the intention of causing Miss Amelia the same heartbreak and pain that she had afflicted on him.