the ballad of the sad cafe and other stories

The writer uses a positive tone to describe this activity: “when your shift is finished, there is absolutely nothing to do you might as well walk down to the Forks Falls Road and listen to the chain gang”(McCuller, p. The only entertainment for the town residents is listening to a chain gang.

“If you walk along the main street on an August afternoon there is nothing whatsoever to do” (McCuller, 3). The people who live here are bored and stagnant because there is usually not much for them to do. The monotony of life in this town is reflected through its residents. The writer closely describes this in the following sentence: “The town itself is dreary not much is there except the cotton mill, the two-room houses where the workers live, a few peach trees, a church with two colored windows, and a miserable main street only a hundred yards long” (McCuller, p. It is so small that almost everything including trees can be counted. The town itself is a lifeless and a dull place. Longer summers and short winters are typical for southern climate. The southern location of the town can be assumed from the following line: “The winters here are short and raw, the summers white with glare and fiery hot” (McCullers, p.3). This is a small town probably located in the southern area. The owner of this café is Miss Amelia Evans who is the richest woman in the town. The story happens in a café which has been closed for a long time. However, this is not the only thing that makes this passage interesting. He uses the present tense in the first few paragraphs, but then switches to the past tense for the rest of the passage. The author tells us his story as a flask back. What makes this passage interesting is the style of writing. In this paper, I will analyze only one passage from the book.

These characters are Miss Amelia Evans, her former husband and Cousin Lymon. The story revolves around three main characters. Carson McCullers wrote and published ’’The Ballad of the Sad Café’’ in 1951.

The ballad of the sad cafe and other stories