The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe Themes

Decent Essays
The novella The ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers focuses on a very specific theme of the lover and the beloved. Often you find the self centered character of cousin Lymon in the spotlight of this love triangle that also features Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy. Cousin Lymon is not only self centered, but also egotistical, and very selfish. These characteristics make him a very apparent reason why the townspeople congregate to see him cause trouble regularly by annoying and harassing people at the café. Also, it is obvious cousin Lymon is the beloved of Amelia, but deeper in the story you can find that cousin Lymon loves Marvin Macy. McCullers theory of love is completely visible as the theme of the novella, and is visible in cousin Lymon through the entirety.

Cousin Lymon is the beloved of Miss Amelia, he comes to find her because he wanted to tell her that they are long lost cousins. Miss Amelia believes him and for the first time in the novella, she shows compassion and love. Miss Amelia is described as a very masculine women, since she was raised by only her father, so it is understandable that she does not often show compassion because of how she had been abandoned by one of her parents. But when Lymon comes to find her it is because he
…show more content…
Also, it is a prime example of how nosy Lymon is. He follows Marvin around from a distance watching every move he makes, without ever taking his eyes off him. After this, Lymon tried to get the attention of Marvin Macy by wiggling his ears, then his hands and arms. This made Lymon look like a fool, and did not prompt Marvin to be nice to Lymon in the

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Anyone is welcome to Bailey’s Café. Whether you are a man or woman, an alcoholic or a prostitute, Bailey and his wife Nadine will not discriminate you. They treat all customers with the utmost respect and provide them quality service. Told from primarily Bailey and Nadine’s point of view, the novel Bailey’s Café is a recollection of moving personal stories of each customer. However, amidst these astonishing stories lies a clear distinction between the characterization of men and women of the café.…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Love can take a person on an unforgettable and otherwise unattainable journey. Jay Gatsby, the love-stricken protagonist in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, is pulled into this journey which brings back his past. Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s new neighbor and friend, narrates the situation he sees involving his married cousin, Daisy, who is caught between Gatsby and her husband, Tom Buchanan. Tom reveals to Nick the affair he is having with another married woman, Myrtle Wilson and relationships grow intense. With Nick’s assistance, Gatsby and Daisy reunite, followed by a rollercoaster of events, including murder and suicide.…

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The book, A Wrinkle in Time, is about a young girl named Meg Murry, her little brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin, who go on a journey to find Meg and Charles’s father. They have to go through many obstacles but are reunited with him in the end. The author's worldview of the novel is that one is stronger than they think despite the challenges they face which can clearly be seen through the centralized themes, the characters, symbols, and the time period in which the novel was published; the movie adaption did a mediocre job of portraying each of these. Throughout the book, Meg encountered many challenges that got in her way.…

    • 1891 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Love remains a frequent topic in literature because of the countless opportunities to explore emotions and to delve into the human psyche to ponder what truly causes someone to love another person. Furthermore, love is multifaceted, and Hawthorne focuses on a different aspect of love within a relationship in each of his two stories. Although “The Birth-Mark” and “The Minister’s Black Veil” both contain elements of Puritan society, delineate the relationship between a man and his partner, and consider how far love can drive a person, each story examines a different kind of love that a man and a woman have for each other. Georgiana unconditionally loves Aylmer in the same way that Mr. Hooper unconditionally loves Elizabeth, but both of their respective partners, Aylmer and Elizabeth, conditionally love them and fixate upon a single, minute detail, the birthmark and the veil, which they perceive…

    • 1747 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The treatment of mental patients has greatly improved since the 1960s, but it still is not perfect. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a novel written by Ken Kesey and published in 1962. Chief Bromden, a schizophrenic patient in an insane asylum who pretends to be dumb and deaf to avoid confrontation, narrates what happens in the ward. When authority hating Randle McMurphy is committed to the ward, he notices the head nurse, Nurse Ratched, manipulates her patients to keep her authority, rather than actually benefit the patients. Nurse Ratched clearly mistreats her patients and gives them unnecessary treatments.…

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Happily Ever Never In life, there are two different kinds of love stories, ones with blissful endings, and some with wretched endings. Not all stories can end with happy endings. Throughout history people have been searching for the love of loves. In “The Lady with the Dog” there is a glimpse of that love, and in “Chrysanthemums”, we see that love torn apart.…

    • 712 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The movie Marvin’s Room exhibit several theories within the family. In fact, between Lee and Bessie, they created a relationship of tension and new roles. Lee and Bessie relationship was not great after their dad went into a chronic illness. The family experienced a crisis and like every family, someone had the take the responsibility of becoming a primary caregiver for their father. Bessie became the primary caregiver for her father and also her aunt Ruth.…

    • 1874 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “Bitter in the Mouth,” Truong avoids the traditional love tale focused on an intense affection, rather she has various dynamic relationships which vary due to different circumstances throughout the story. The relationships are all centred around love ranging from romance, heartbreak, family, friendship and ones that seem strained beyond repair. “Bitter in the Mouth” occurs in Boiling Springs, Linda, who has synesthesia, understands that she is different from everybody in her adopted small town and is unsure of her backstory how she ended up there. Seeing that and the states of her respective relationships continuously influence the decisions she makes throughout her life. Truong’s theory of love consists of it being shown in many diverse…

    • 1366 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Theme Of Loneliness

    • 1158 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Loneliness is when you are sad because you have no company or friends. Being lonely is not healthy for people. If you are isolated long enough it can lead to situations where you could cause harm to yourself. Depression and thoughts of suicide are only some of the hardships that may occur from being lonely for too long. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the characters are located on a ranch to work in a town called Soledad.…

    • 1158 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin and “The Red Convertible” by Louise Erdrich are two very different stories with differing themes, settings, characters, and summaries, however much of the symbolism that is portrayed through the two can be connected. While “Sonny’s Blues” discusses the struggles between a heroin user, Sonny, and his brother, “The Red Convertible” is a story about the shaky relationship between brothers Lyman and Henry. The obvious connection that is made relates to both sets of brothers that long for acceptance and approval of each other. Both stories show the importance of brotherhood and the lifelong bond that they desire.…

    • 886 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide” -Hannah Arendt. This quotation expresses the way lying is a coverup for a bigger problem that someone wishes to hide. Lying is done on purpose in order to deceive someone just like in the novel The Girl on the Train. In this novel, characters such as the protagonist, Rachel, an alcoholic and Tom, Rachel’s ex husband both play a role in deceiving others. In The Girl on the Train Hawkins examines the way which lying dismantles people’s communication, creates distance, establishes obstacles, clouds the truth, and breaks up communication through the relationships of Anna and Tom, Rachel and…

    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Although many of Billy Collins’ short poems feature a first-person perspective, readers should not necessarily assume that the voice belongs to the poet himself. Indeed, at times, Collins speaks in the voice of a distinct character whose experiences and thoughts reveal a specific situation and crisis. In “The Waitress,” for example, the speaker’s observations indicate that he dines out often enough to recognize the behaviours common to restaurant servers, but the detail of his description suggests that observing the waitress on this occasion has become a personally meaningful activity. The speaker’s detailed observation of his apparently indifferent waitress gives way to a romantic fantasy that reveals him to be a lonely man contemplating…

    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Theme Of Loneliness

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Friendship is universal but so is its opposite, loneliness. No one wants to be lonely, but when someone is, they can become desperate for any sort of human contact. In the book Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, this theme of loneliness is explored extensively. In the land of migrant workers, who usually travel around alone, George and Lennie are the exception. They travel around together, coming to this ranch full of other lonely characters.…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, in an excerpt from his novel, “Egotism; or The Bosom Serpent,” recounts a puzzling condition that Roderick Elliston suffers from. Hawthorne’s purpose is to convey the idea that, love can also be a force of destruction that brings harm to the people who express it. He adopts a despairing tone through the use simile, repetition, and imagery which appeals to the emotions of the readers and supports Hawthorne’s purpose. Hawthorne begins his excerpt by addressing the assumed cause of Roderick Elliston’s puzzling behavior. He supports the tone of despair through the simile that implies the power that the condition has over him; “…his associates had observed a singular gloom spreading over his daily life, like those chill,…

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hero And Leander Analysis

    • 1346 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In literature, love has always been a concept of great debate, although, what exactly is love? Pamela C. Regan, from Los Angeles University, explains that “…A person who experiences sexual desire for another individual, along with other emotional or psychological events, may characterize his or her state as one of ‘being in love…’” (Regan 139). However, does this sexual desire always breed emotion? When one thinks of love, thoughts of tenderness, kindness, and romance often arise with it.…

    • 1346 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics