伤心咖啡馆之歌读书报告.doc

河 南 科 技 大 学读 书 报 告 题目A Brief Analysis of Loneliness and the Unrequited Love of The Ballad of the Sad Caf浅析伤心咖啡馆之歌中的孤独与无私之爱姓 名 段 文 昊 院 系 外国语学院 专 业 英 语 指导教师 任 培 红 2014年12月19日A Brief Analysis of Loneliness and Unrequited Love of The Ballad of the Sad CafI. IntroductionUnrequited love and loneliness are always the beloved topics for Carson McCullers, which combined with her own experience to make it more touchable and realistic. This essay is going to discuss the famous yet absurd loneliness and unrequited love in the story of The Ballad of The Sad Caf and present my personal comments. 1.1 Introduction to the author Carson McCullers was an American writer of novels, short stories, plays, essays, and poetry. Her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts in a small town of the U.S. South. Her other novels have similar themes and most are set in the far South.McCullers oeuvre is often described as Southern Gothic and indicative of her southern roots. However, McCullers penned all of her work after leaving the South, and critics also describe her writing and eccentric characters as universal in scope. Her stories have been adapted to stage and film. A stage work of her novel The Member of the Wedding, which captures a young girls feelings at her brothers wedding, made a successful Broadway run in 1950 to 1951.McCullers published eight books; the best known are The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Reflections in a Golden Eye and The Member of the Wedding. The novella The Ballad of the Sad Caf depicts loneliness and the pain of unrequited love.Although McCullerss style is often described as “Southern Gothic”, she produced her famous works after leaving the South. Her eccentric characters suffer from loneliness that is interpreted with deep empathy. In a discussion with the Irish critic and writer Terence de Vere White she said, “Writing, for me, is a search for God”. Other critics have variously detected tragicomic or political elements in her writing. New York Times describe her work as, “Carson McCullers never rewrote the front pages to brand them novels although she was concerned about the barbarism of racism in her native South, her short stories and novels were allegorical, yet crystalline. She dignified the individual, especially lifes losersshe reflected the lonely heart with a golden hand.”1.2 Introduction to the novelThe Ballad of the Sad Caf is generally considered one of McCullerss best works of fiction and her most successful exploration of her signature themes: loneliness and the effects of unrequited love. McCullers was 24 when she began writing the novella during the winter of 1941. Citing her remark that “everything significant that has happened in my fiction has also happened to me”, McCullerss biographer, Virginia Spencer Carr, noted that The Ballad of the Sad Caf was most likely inspired by several events in her life at this time. Similarly, the motif of the romantic triangle is regarded as a distorted rendering of the situation between McCullers, her husband, and the American composer David Diamond.II. A Summary of the Novel The Ballad of the Sad Cafe opens in a small, isolated Georgia town. The story introduces Miss Amelia Evans, a strong character of both body and mind, who is approached by a hunchbacked man with only a suitcase in hand who claims to be of kin.When Miss Amelia, whom the townspeople see as a calculating woman who never acts without reason, takes the stranger into her home, rumors begin to circulate that Miss Amelia has only done so to take what the hunchback had in his suitcase. When the rumors hit their peak, a group of eight men come to her store, sitting outside on the steps for the day and waiting to see if something would happen.Finally, they enter the store all at once and are stunned to see that the hunchback is actually alive and well. With everyone gathered inside, Miss Amelia brings out some liquor and crackers in hospitality, which further shocks the men, as they have never witnessed Miss Amelia be hospitable enough to allow drinking inside her home. This is essentially the beginning of the caf. Miss Amelia and the hunchback, Cousin Lymon, unintentionally create a new tradition for the town, and the people gather inside at the caf on Sunday evenings often until midnight.It is apparent, though surprising, to the townspeople that Miss Amelia has fallen in love with Cousin Lymon, and has begun to change slightly as time progresses. When the townspeople see this, they relate it to another odd incident in which Miss Amelia was also involved: the issue of her ten-day marriage.Miss Amelia had been married to a man named Marvin Macy, who was a vicious and cruel character before meeting and falling in love with her. He changed his ways and became good-natured, but reverted to his old self when his love was rejected after a failed ten-day marriage in which he gave up everything he possessed in hopes of having her return his affections. He broke out into a rage, committing a string of felonies before being caught and locked up in the state penitentiary.When he was released, he returned to the town with the full intention of ruining Miss Amelias life the way she ruined his. Upon his return, he takes advantage of Cousin Lymons admiration for him, as he views Macy as a true man, and uses him to crush Miss Amelias heart. Macy and Miss Amelia engage in a physical fight, and just as Miss Amelia is about to take the upper hand, Lymon jumps her from behind allowing Macy to prevail. Macy and Cousin Lymon ransack the caf, break her still, steal her curios and money, and disappear from town leaving Miss Amelia alone to herself.The novella ends with The Twelve Mortal Men, which is a brief passage of twelve men in a chain-gang, whose actions outline that of what happened in the lonely rural town, and highlights the themes of loneliness and isolation.III. Comments Throughout the novel, there is an evident recurring theme which present in the story is a feeling of unrequited love, illustrated through looking at the parallels of the intertwined relationships between three separate individuals. Miss Amelia, Cousin Lymon, and Marvin Macy, are the players involved in this grotesque love triangle. The feelings they respectively have for each other are what drives the story, and are significant enough that the prosperity of entire town hinges upon them.3.1 Comments on the Main Characters All of the three characters are the particular obvious peculiar persons in the real world, however, we can easily find the shadow of ourselves which we have been hiding for so long. Carson McCullers shaped very ridiculous yet realistic characters in this novel. 3.1.1 Miss AmeliaMiss Amelia is a paradoxical character with the features of both sex. From the perspective of her appearance, “she was a dark, tall woman with bones and muscles like a man her hair was cut short and brushed back from the forehead, and there was her sunburned face a tense, haggard quality. She might have been a handsome woman if, even then, she was not slightly cross-eyed.”Impressions for her are shaped from the description of her appearance as a strong, tough, self-contradictory figure. However, to some degree, she has motherly love towards her patients. Miss Amelia, in the past, is the proprietor of a small cafe in the center of a sleepy Southern town. She is rich, partially from her fathers holdings and partially from her own business savvy. She is quarrelsome, given to arguing over prices and taking people to court if she feels she has been wronged in the slightest. Eventually the betrayal of Cousin Lymon left Amelia a wrecked person. The strength leaves her body and voice, her hair grows gray, and she retreats into her old, bitter hermit ways. By the time we visit her in the present, she is a spirit-broken spinster who hardly dares to peek out the window. 3.1.2 Cousin Lymon Cousin Lymon is a hunchback who arrives mysteriously to town one day, searching for Amelia, who claims he is distantly related to. Lymon is an outcast in the McCuller mode, and here his physical deformity telegraphs his misfit nature. Amelia invites Lymon into her home and comes to love Lymon. Unfortunately for Amelia, Lymon does not return such love, resulting in an unequal relationship in which Lymon takes advantage of Amelia.Lymon is said to possess an ability to establish a deep connection with anyone he meets in a short amount of time. A group of townspeople are ready to kill Lymon for being a freak, but instead he uses this “charm” to ingratiate himself, and soon he is the center of attention in town, a very sociable chap who talks at length on any subject.Eventually Lymon becomes infatuated with Marvin Macy, Amelias ex-con ex-husband. Like much of the behavior in McCullers stories, the reason behind this infatuation is pretty plain, but Lymon mentions being envious at Marvin having seen the inside or prison and the city of Atlanta. It is this strange infatuation that compels Lymon to attack Amelia in her fight with Marvin, ruining the match. He runs off with Marvin, wrecking Amelias cafe and heart. 3.1.3 Marvin MacyMarvin Macy is Amelias ex-husband (for ten days), who after the marriage robbed three filling stations and supposedly killed a man, crimes for which he spent time in the Atlanta penitentiary. His return to the town after many years is an ill omen, and it results in Lymons betrayal of Amelia, the ruin and closure of Amelias cafe, and Amelias own broken heart. He is an evil man without any redeeming characteristics, and he uses Lymons attraction to him as a weapon against Amelia.3.2 Comments on the Loneliness and Unrequited Love All the main characters had loneliness and painful memory of their unrequited love to some certain degree, which are the major topics that Carson McCullers tried to illustrated in her novel. In this essay the spotlight will be on Miss Amelia and cousin lymon. 3.2.1 Loneliness and Unrequited Love of Miss AmeliaMiss Amelia treated everyone in a not so nice way and would mostly look for a chance to take advantage of people because she had the power to do so. Though, when Marvin returned from prison Amelia had nothing more to gain from him and he had nothing to gain from her. He came back for revenge like he promise in the letter he wrote to her “ It was a wild love letter-but in it were also included threats, and he swore that in his life he would get even with her”. So in fear of him going through with what he promised to her in that letter when she saw him back in town she changed into her red dress instead of her overalls which is a sign of her fear for him “For some reason, after the day of Marvin Macys arrival, she put aside her overalls and wore always the red dress she had before this time reserved for Sundays, funerals and session of the court.”Miss Amelia wanted to be in charge of everything and everyone. Even love she wanted to control and do it the way she perceived it. Her perception of love was outside of the norms of a normal love experienced between two people: First of all, it is a joint experience between two persons, but that fact does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge that makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best as he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world-a world intense and strange, complete in himself. That is why Amelia preferred to be the lover not the beloved. She believed that the lover had the power over the beloved and that the lover was the one that could manipulate the emotions within the joint experience of love.Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state is being the beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved.Amelia was so lonely, that when she had to be around people she did not feel comfortable at all “It was only with people that Miss Amelia was not at ease. People, unless they are nilly-willy or very sick, cannot be taken into the hands and changed overnight to something more worthwhile and profitable”. Amelia wanted to bond with someone, to fit in but she could not achieve it because she did not let anyone in so she sunk in her loneliness.This simply explains why Miss Amelia experienced extreme loneliness and pain of the unrequited love; on one hand, she wants to hold the powerful position during courtship and to control whatever she want which including almost everything concerns the male characters, on the other hand, two male characters whom she engaged with has their own desire in the courtship, which leads to a moral dilemma and creates conflict and confrontation.3.2.1 Loneliness and Unrequited Love of Cousin LymonBeing a hunchback with a dreadful shape makes Cousin Lymon a complete joke as well as freak in this novel, however, the audiences can actually spot three stages of the change of cousin lemon:The first stage is that he is a pure ragged hunchback. The audiences can hardly draw much more descriptions from the beginning of the novel about anything concerns Cousin Lymon except for the words he spoke and the appearance he showed. He said in the beginning that he is related to Miss Amelia and he has traveled so far just to depend on Miss Amelia, meanwhile, judging from his appearance, no one would seriously take that into consideration but Miss Amelia herself. This surprising consequence showed in the relationship between him and Miss Amelia that he is determined to be the lover or more precisely, the positive part, which leads to the betrayal and loneliness for Miss Amelia.The second stage is that he fall in love with Miss Amelia. It is not very clear that he is in love with Miss Amelia or not but the audience can firmly assert that he want to live with Miss Amelia before Marvin Macy shows up because of the fortune which Miss Amelia gives him or the “fame” he thinks he has, etc. During this stage he completely sink in the unrequited love from Miss Amelia and enjoy the happiness which has long lost in his life.The third stage is that when Marvin Macy shows up, he is obsessed with him and completely betray Miss Amelia. At this point the audiences may detect that Cousin Lymon can be gay in some sense. He cant get his eyes off Marvin Macy at the first sight and it is the handsome face, strength as well as his masculinity that attract Cousin Lymon so much, and under that circumstance, McCullers was trying to show us the essence in the character of cousin Lymon, and that is dominance. Due to the characteristic of cousin lymon, he always seeks someone who can dominant him, which is also the loneliness of the pathetic hunchback because he can never be treated equally with the other person in the relationship. Meanwhile, the unrequited love he pays to Marvin Macy is just the one Miss Amelia pays to him, and they were all gone. This dreadful figure is not only the reflection of the author herself but also any lover in the c