The Narrative Situation in The Ballad of the Sad Café

Year 2018, Issue: 48, 23 - 44, 01.04.2018

Şenol Bezci

Abstract

The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers presents a unique narrative situation with a narrator who may be called communal, because he identifies himself with the townspeople, narrates what is known by them, and his knowledge of the events and the characters are limited to the geographical limits of the town. As a balladeer he narrates an event that concerns the townspeople. However, his narration conceals certain aspects of the story from the narratee who is a visitor or a stranger from out of town. What the narration hides is that the owners of the only café at the town, namely Miss Amelia Evans and Cousin Lymon are gay. The narrator does not make any statements as to their sexual identity though such a sexual preference is never tolerated in a conservative Southern town where Amelia lives. In this case, the townspeople and the narrator ignore this idea about Amelia and Lymon, as they have an indispensable importance for people. The narrative act which hides as much as it reveals can be deciphered correctly only when the unique narrative situation is recognized

Keywords

Narrative Theory, Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café, Gender

The Ballad of the Sad Café Adlı Novellada Anlatı Yapısı

Abstract

Carson McCullers’ın Küskün Kahvenin Türküsü benzersiz bir anlatı yapısına sahiptir. Novellanın anlatıcısını komünal bir anlatıcı olarak adlandırabiliriz çünkü anlatıcı kendisini kasaba halkıyla özdeşleştirmektedir, kasaba halkınca bilinenleri anlatmaktadır ve olaylara ve insanlara dair bilgisi kasabanın hudutlarıyla sınırlıdır. Bir türkü ozanı olarak kasaba halkını ilgilendiren bir öyküyü anlatmaktadır. Ancak, anlatısında olayların baş kahramanları olan Miss Amelia Evans ve Kuzen Lymon’ın eşcinsel olduğunu bir ziyaretçi ya da kasabanın dışından gelmiş bir yabancı olan dinleyiciden gizlemektedir. Anlatıcı karakterlerin cinsel yönelimlerine dair açıklamada bulunmaz. Oysa, Amelia’nın yaşadığına benzer tutucu Güney kasabalarında normlardan sapmalar asla görmezden gelinmez ve hoş görülmez. Bu kez kasaba halkı ve anlatıcı, karakterlerin eşcinsel olmalarını hoş görürler çünkü karakterler, yöredeki tek cafenin sahipleri olarak kasaba için vaz geçilmez bir öneme sahiptirler. Küskün Kahvenin Türküsü ancak, bazı gerçekleri hem anlatan hem de saklayan bu benzersiz anlatı durumu çözüldüğünde doğru anlaşılacaktır

Keywords

Anlatı Kuramı, Carson McCullers, Küskün Kahvenin Türküsü, Toplumsal Cinsiyet

References

• Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. Massachusetts: Heinle and Heinle, 1999. Print.
• Adams, Rachel. “’A Mixture of Delicious and Freak”: The Queer Fiction of Carson McCullers”. American Literature. Vol 71. No 3. (1999): 551-583. Web.
• Booth, C. Wayne. The Rhetoric of Fiction. 2nd ed. Suffolk: Penguin Books, 1987. Print.
• Broughton, Panthea Reid.”Rejection of the Feminine in Carson McCullers’ The Ballad of the Sad Café”. Twentieth Century Literature. Vol. 20, No 1. (1974): 34-43. Web.
• Carr, Virginia Spencer. Understanding Carson McCullers. South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2005. Print.
• Chatman, Seymour. “Voice”. Narrative/Theory. Ed. David H. Richter. New York: Longman, 1996. 160-169. Print.
• Cook, M. Richard. Carson McCullers. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1982. Print.
• Cuddon, J. A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms. London: Penguin Books, 1987. Print.
• Fludernik, Monika. Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge, 1996. Print.
• Genette, Gérard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Trans. Jane E. Lewin. New York: Cornell UP, 1993. Print.
• Higdon, David Leon. “ ‘Unconfessed Confessions’: the Narrators of Grahan Swift and Julian Barnes”. The British and Irish Novel Since 1960. Ed. James Acheson. London: Macmillan, 1991. 174-191. Print.
• James, Judith Giblin. Wunderkind: The Reputation of Carson McCullers, 1940-1990. Columbia: Camden House, 1995. Print.
• Öz, Fahri. “The Lyric and the Voyeuristic Drive” Idea: Studies in English. Ed. Evrim Doğan Adanur. New Castle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011. 425-433. Print.
• McCullers, Carson. “The Ballad of the Sad Café”. Seven Contemporary Short Novels. Eds. Charles Clerc and Louis Leiter. Glenview: Scot, Foresman, 1982. 101-159. Print.
• McNally, John. “The Introspective Narrator in ‘The Ballad of the Sad Café’”. South Atlantic Bulletin. Vol 38. No. 4. (1973): 40-44. Web.
• Phelan, James. Reading People, Reading Plots: Character, Progression, and the Interpretation of Narrative. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1989. Print.
• Prince, Gerald. “Introduction to the Study of Narratee”. Narrative/ Theory. Ed. David H. Richter. New York: Longman, 1996. 226- 241.
• Rabinowitz, Peter. “Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences”. Critical Inquiry. Vol. 3. (1976). 121-141. Web.
• Salami, Mahmoud. John Fowles’s Fiction and the Poetics of Postmodernism. Madison: Associated University Presses, 1992. Print.