Southern Characteristics Of The Ballad Of The Sad

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Southern Characteristics of The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe 1. Not always in chronological order. In the novella, one of the common characteristics that stuck out to me was the different and unusual uses of time. The story begins by describing a small dreary town in great detail. It describes the streets, the buildings, the weather, the people. As the narrator continues to describe the town, he comes upon an old, boarded up house. We find out that this old house used to be a cafe. Then we go back in time when the house was just a store that Miss Amelia inherited from her father. We then fast forward in time and learn about Miss Amelia’s ten day marriage, but we don’t find out any details about this. We then go back to before Miss Amelia was married and we get a little more insight on how she spent her days before the cafe came about. After this passage, we move forward in time again, and this is when we meet Cousin Lymon, or “Hunchback”. He would eventually convince Miss Amelia to convert her store into the cafe. After the opening of the cafe, the story directs us four years into the future, when the cafe is doing great business, and people are starting to realize that Miss Amelia is in love with Cousin Lymon. When the narrator speaks about love, we are taken back into the past and we are introduced to Marvin Macy. After the story of Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy’s ten day marriage is told, we are once again bumped back to the future. The narrator continues to tell the story in an unusual order. It’s very apparent that the author used the southern characteristic of ‘playing with time’ and telling the story out of sequence. 2. Strong Narrative Voice In literature a strong narrative voice is defined as generally consistent, and doesn't switch from first ("I"), to second ("you") to third ("he or she") person. I think that The Ballad of The Sad Cafe has a

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