Frankie
Why does McCullers choose to have Frankie confuse words?
Pages 6, 9, and 12
In what ways did McCullers create grotesque elements of imagery of Horace Wells child passed out at the table edge in the cafe?
Pg 40 “trickle of spit or Kroup Kure had bubbled from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were quite closed, and a little family of gnats had clustered peacefully in the corners. Miss.Amelia put her hand on his head and shook it roughly, but the patient did not awake.”
What does McCullers mean when she uses the word 'queer'?
Pages 1&2 they mean odd or weird.
Page 25 “In the MacKeans’ garage, with Barney MacKean, they committed a queer sin”
In what way does McCullers reject gender?
“Lily Belle” pg. 18
“She wanted to be a boy and go to the war as a marine” (pg. 23)
“Such things as these, then, happen when a man has drunk Miss.Amelia’s liquor” (pg 10 on handout) ......
He may suffer, or he may be spent with joy-but the experience has shown the truth; he has warmed his soul and seen the message hidden there.
Frankie wants to get away and go somewhere. She discusses her wanting to donate blood. How does that passage tell us about Frankie’s understanding of herself?
Page 23
How does the grotesque elements of Miss.Amelia actions relate to McCullers reflecting the resentment Miss.Amelia has towards Marvin Macy?
Pg 57 Attempt at taking Marvin Macy's life by poison is an interesting way to kill someone, & McCullers is showing a side of Miss.Amelia that otherwise the readers would have never considered. It shows that Miss.Amelia is willing to go the extra mile to ensure her safety and own livelihood w/ Marvin Macy gone for good.
Why does McCullers only have Frankie use the word queer?
She may be too young to pick another word? She may think she sounds fancy using it? She may think that it makes her sound smart?
Why does McCullers frequently depict her characters with notable physical features? What is McCullers trying to say about ‘the body’ in these texts?
pg. 8, pg. 19
At the end of the story of The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, Cousin Lymon and Marvin Macy did the following 3 things before they left town together
What is Stole valuable items from Miss Amelia, Destroyed her whiskey still, and wrote bad words into the cafe tables.
Do you feel that Frankie is a reliable narrator?
Find examples of lies or truths Frankie tells us
How does McCullers grotesque depiction of the hunchback on pgs 6-7 “He was scarcely more than four feet tall and he wore a ragged, dusty coat that reached only to his knees. His crooked little legs seemed too thin to carry the weight of his great warped chest and the hump that sat on his shoulders” contribute to Miss.Amelia’s acceptance of Cousin Lymon into her home?
Pg 26-27 “Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself”. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Miss.Amelia accepted Cousin Lymon, because she saw something special with him that pursued her to want to help him.
In what ways does McCullers represent her own views about sexuality throughout part one?
page 27 marriage
page 25 sexual interaction
In what ways does McCullers reject gender norms regarding other characters in the text?
“Lily Belle” (pg. 18)
Cousin Lymon and Miss Amelia relationship relates to Frankie and John Henry West relationship because___________________
Because of the dependency Miss.Amelia requires from Cousin Lymon, as well as the need for Frankie to constantly keep John Henry West close.
What is Frankie’s relationship to men in this story?
We only directly see Frankie have a relationship with her six-year old cousin. Her father and brother are yet to be directly introduced to the audience.
How did the queer sin make Frankie feel about Barney MacKean, and in what ways is it inclusive to grotsque elements of McCullers type of Southern fiction.
The sin made a shriveling sickness in her stomach, and she dreaded the eyes of everyone. She hated Barney and wanted to kill him. Sometimes alone in the bed at night she planned to shoot him with the pistol or throw a knife between his eyes. Grotesque element of fiction depicts the the severity of Frankies disgust and hatred toward Barney through dark measures of killing as an escape from queer sin.
Does the sheer number of times that McCullers uses the word queer mean anything? Why does she choose to use the word queer and not a synonym?
page 9
What group does Frankie desire to be a part of?
The clubhouse where other girls roughly Frankie’s age are members- a space where they can interact with other boys their age. (pg. 42, pg. 12)
This war takes place during the novel in The Member of the Wedding.
World War 2
Find examples in the text of when Frankie parallels her own emotions with the changing of seasons. What is the relationship to time in Frankie’s own life?
As Frankie begins to understand how large the world is, while remaining stuck where she is, she develops an anxious relationship towards time. The dog days of the August summer she feels trapped in seem never-ending; she feels as though she can’t make it to the end of the week to attend her brother’s wedding at Winter Hill (notable name). By the spring, she feels that she will no longer be afraid.
Pg. 27
Pg. 46
How does the House of Freaks relate to the nature of grotesque elements in Frankie’s life?
They had looked at her in a secret way and tried to connect their eyes with hers, as though to say: we know you. Frankie able to relate the strangeness of the grotesque freaks with her own life, because she is considered an outsider to many within her own society because she defies gender norms.
How does the idea of sexuality in part one play into the gothic elements of southern fiction?
the elusive nature of the marriage and Frankie's ideas about relationship and sexuality
How do the characters in the text relate to the space around them? Are they confined by it, welcomed by it?
Frankie, in particular, feels trapped by her current situation in life. She has seemingly little interaction with other people her age - she is not welcome to the clubhouse, and her two closest confidants in the text are John Henry, who is six, and Berenice, the housekeeper, who is in her 30s. She yearns to break free of her role in a small, smothering, southern town.
This is parallel to the others in the story who feel that they fit in where they belong from Frankie’s perspective. Her brother has traveled to Alaska, and will now travel with his wife. Her cousin, who is a child, says that he is not lonely and that he is perfectly happy where he is (pg. 43)
You are going to die, and Miss.Amelia providing a treatment to patients and saying it may or may not work are responses Miss.Amelia gave after _____________.
After Cousin Lymon and Marvin Macy left Miss.Amelia.