The Impact & Meaning of The Ballad of the Sad Café and How These are Created by the Writer

In The Ballad of the Sad Café, Carson McCullers presents an intriguing, metaphorical tale laden with hidden messages and meanings, the most important of which is the idea of the concept of fate and the fact that everything is already mapped out. McCullers effectively develops this through the story’s strong use of narrative techniques, which provoke ideas that allow us to deduce the text’s ultimate meaning.

The arrival of Cousin Lymon and the estranged criminal husband of Miss Amelia, Marvin Macy, adversely affect the impressionable population of the small backwater town in The Ballad of the Sad Café. It is the former’s influence that makes Miss Amelia start up the café, giving the townsfolk somewhere to congregate. However it is also he who causes the destruction of the café due to his obsession with the felonious Macy. It is Lymon and Macy’s actions that cause the town to become the empty, deserted shell we see in the opening of the book.

This opening is a significant contributor in developing meaning in the novella. McCullers uses a frame at the start and end of the text, and this choice of structure shows how the story will end, at the start. This promotes the notion that the end is already determined before the story begins. The town in which the story is set will become ‘lonesome, sad and like a place that is far off and estranged from any other place in the world...’ This choice of structure also shows that the sequence of events, however they should occur, will inevitably end in this ‘dreary’, ‘miserable’ manner and nothing can prevent it.

Weather patterns are also used to illustrate the role of fate. They are used to predict, reflect and sometimes even dictate the moods of the main characters. They show that a greater power or supreme being has control of the town and is attempting to guide the action to its decided ending. ‘Marvin Macy brought with him bad fortune, right from the first, as could be expected. The next day the weather turned suddenly, and it became hot.’ This example illustrates how the characters are linked with the weather but have no control over it. Rather it can be assumed the weather controls, or mimics them. The ‘heat’ makes the town uncomfortable, just as Marvin does with his presence.

Although it is never made entirely clear, this controlling factor, or destiny, also takes a physical form as an impartial character used by McCullers to ensure the events of the story follow a predetermined agenda. This would explain some of the more odd characters that inhabit the town, most obviously Cousin Lymon the hunchback. The bizarre characters are used to reinforce the idea of predetermination. Numerous symbolic references point to both Macy and Lymon being supernatural characters, placed within the town with some set goal. Cousin Lymon, in particular, as he does not know his own age, is unable to carry out normal tasks, enjoys violence (cockfighting) and mischief making. Lymon comes across as childlike, as he is scared of the dark, concerned by petty issues, and is easily upset when he does not get his way, all common traits of someone who is immature. This suggests that perhaps Lymon was specifically created for the purpose of driving the events of the story. ‘There was something childish about his satisfaction with his painting. And in this respect a curious fact should be mentioned. No one in the town, not even Miss Amelia, had any idea how old the hunchback was. Some maintained that when he came to the town he was still a child about twelve years old... it was impossible to guess his age... When questioned directly about his age, the hunchback professed he had no idea how long he had been on the Earth.’

Although McCullers emphasises Lymon’s childishness, she at the same time refers to his inhuman nature. Many of the townsfolk believed that he was twelve when he reached the town, but ‘others were certain he was well past forty’. ‘His eyes were blue and steady as a child’s, but there were lavender crêpy shadows beneath these blue eyes that hinted at age.’ His indeterminate age suggests he is not of this world, as does the fact that when questioned on his age he is unaware of how long he had been alive. This is also reinforced by his use of the word ‘Earth’, as it suggests he knew his age but was unsure of the amount of time spent down, or up for that matter, on the earth, rather than his supernatural position.

In The Ballad Of The Sad Café, McCullers uses structure, language and her characters to convey the idea that life is planned and out of our control. It is this realisation that creates impact within the book as McCullers makes the reader question the true meaning of destiny and fate, and possibly takes us one step closer to answering that question that plagues us all: why?