The Ballad of the Sad Café McCullers, Carson | John McNally (essay date 1973)
John McNally (essay date 1973)
SOURCE: "The Introspective Narrator in The Ballad of the Sad Café," in South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4, November, 1973, pp. 40-4.
[In the following essay, McNally examines the point-of-view of the narration in The Ballad of the Sad Café, arguing that when the reader views the narrator as "a character in the story, he notices a subtle but significant shift in the story's form and subsequent themes."]
Carson McCullers' novella, The Ballad of the Sad Café, is intriguing for a number of reasons. First there is the incredibly grotesque gallery of characters who people the little dreary town in which the story takes place. Then, of course, there is the enigmatic epilogue, "The Twelve Mortal Men," which seems at first glance to have been an after-thought of the author. And there is the disturbing plot with its love triangle so reminiscent of Sartre's curious ménage à...
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