The Ballad of the Sad Café McCullers, Carson | Mary Ann Dazey (essay date 1985)
Mary Ann Dazey (essay date 1985)
SOURCE: "Two Voices of the Single Narrator in The Ballad of the Sad Café" in The Southern Literary Journal Vol. XVII, No. 2, Spring, 1985, pp. 33-40.
[In the following essay, Dazey argues that the narrator of The Ballad of the Sad Café has two distinct voices: one that interprets the story and laments the town and the actions of the characters, and one that tells the story in a relatively objective manner.]
When The Ballad of the Sad Café was first published in Harper's Bazaar in 1943, Carson McCullers was twenty-six, and at that time most critics pointed to the work as evidence of the great promise of the young writer. Today, however, it is ranked along with The Member of the Wedding as her most successful work. McCullers' choosing to call the sad, romantic tale a ballad has caused many to discuss her ballad style in some fashion. In his work Carson McCullers,...
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