Evil and Violence

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Jeremie Baruch
France


Evil and Violence

Carson McCullers' Ballad of the Sad Café is a book about love.  However, love is not existent without its antagonist :  Hate
Hate goes, as everyone knows, hand in hand with evil whose representation on our little planet is violence.

In the novella, evil and violence take different forms :


è the atmosphere

        The town is portrayed as a dreary place, different from any other place in the world.  As McCullers would put it,  ' estranged from all other places'.  It seems that an evil spirit is hovering over the town to spread its crookedness.  Along with the swamp and its horrid odor, it really does look like a ghost town.  As an example, after the snowfall, some houses will 'appear dirty, crooked, and about to collapse' ,  giving us the impression that everything is rotting from the inside.  Nothing seems alive,
everything looks deserted, as if the town was struck by Evil. 

Indeed the setting is very important and is closely woven into the narrative passages, as it seems often hostile.  When the rumor that Ms. Amelia had murdered the hunchback starts, the air suddenly becomes 'icy with a drizzle settling in.' The day, which had been fine, ends in a bleak night, in keeping the gruesome talk of the day.


è the townspeople

        Most townsmen are not depicted in the novella, they appear as a whole, as
a unity.  The most obvious example is the 8 men coming in the store on the
night of the rumor.  McCullers writes that this little community of 8
'looked very much alike (like an army platoon) with a set dreaming look in
the eye.  What they would have done next, no one knows' However, we can
imagine that they were ready to ransack the store and destroy it.  This
symbolic of violence is very representative of the town :  the thought of
destroying, fighting and killing amuses more than anything else.  Indeed,
they were all present at the Ms Amelia vs. Marvin Macy fight. 
        Even though the subject is not clearly tackled in the book, a few casual
allusions here and there seem to support the idea of racism and denigration
:  the town is not likely to 'let white orphans perish in the road before
your eyes' , which may mean that the town would not care for black children
- otherwise, why would McCullers use the adjective white ? - Similarly,
Ms. Amelia is seen cutting Marvin Macy's 'Klansman's robe to cover her
tobacco plants.' The narrator passes no comment on this fact, which seems
to imply that the KKK is so much a part of everyday life in the South that it has become trivial.  Furthermore, we are told at the beginning of the book, the story of Morris Finestein, obviously a Jewish name, which is a synonym for coward in this town.  We are given the impression that the whole South is racist throughout these few people.  And racism is a form of violence.


è the main characters

        Ms Amelia : She is depicted as a hard character, strong-willed.  She is often seen clenching her fists, whenever someone annoys her, ready to fight, to get violent.  She is not afraid to fight fearlessly some 'huge strapping fellows whom she will leave quarter dead when she has finished with them'.  Her shop makes her the 'townboss', which enables her to have an attitude of defiance towards the other people, who are frightened of her.  Except for Cousin Lymon, she often adopts some kind of violent attitude, whether for making money or else.

        Cousin Lymon : The little 'strutting hunchback' who arrives in the village is a freak of nature, he looks like the embodiment of the Devil himself as much in his physical appearance than in his mental attitude. His hands which look like 'dirty little sparrow claws' refer to his jumping on Ms Amelia's back and clutching at her neck 'with his clawed little fingers' :  he, like the devil, is able to change his appearance and sometimes looks like a 'swamphaunt'. He takes a passionate delight in watching cockfights, which are cruel and violent spectacles.  Furthermore, one of his favorite activities is setting people against each other and watch them fight and argue.  His wickedness is emphasized by the look he first exchanges with Marvin Macy, which is that of 'two criminals'.  In the end, he behaves in the most cruel manner with Ms Amelia when he starts making fun of her by imitating and emphasizing her way of walking, and finally when he helps Marvin Macy win the fight and ransack Amelia's shop.  He lies all the time too, which is often associated with evil.

        Marvin Macy : he is the caricature of the traditional villain in any US movie.  From the start, he is described as a handsome bad guy that ' shamelessly ruins the tenderest girls of the county'.  Indeed, he acts as a tough person with violent manners for he often chops off squirrels' tails.  Even though he changes his manners for a while, after being thrown out of Ms. Amelia's house, he starts stealing and killing again, which leads him straight to jail.  Evil is in his soul, and for years he 'carried the ears of a man he had chopped off in a razor fight'.  The ugliness and the violence of the character is studied very closely through some explanation with he way he was brought up as a child, that is, beaten and violently educated and, as McCullers says, ' a cruel beginning can twist the heart of small children into curious shapes'. After his stay in the penitentiary, he comes back looking like the devil, for Ms. Amelia says : 'he will never set his split foot on my premises', which means the devil's foot.  In his wake follows the rotten smell of the swamp.   After the fight, he ruins the place and leaves unpunished before continuing their wrongdoing elsewhere.


è the action

        There are few passages in the novella that reinforce the impact of violence in the Ballad of the Sad Café.  For example, the wedding night and the ten days that followed.  Ms Amelia, after punching her husband in the face, does not let him in on her premises again without being beaten. Another example, the most convincing one about Evil and Violence in the book, is the final fight between Marvin Macy and Ms. Amelia.  McCullers gives the reader a great deal of details on the fight, on the fighters' attitude, etc. But the violent climax is reached when Marvin Macy, accompanied by his dwarfish friend, ransacks the café, leaving everything upside down.

è conclusion

        Evil and violence are very important aspects of the novella, and the Ballad of the Sad Café would be a very sad story if those aspects were not toned down by another recurring theme :  humor and irony, used quite often by the writer to sand-off the rough edges given by the Evil and Violence.