"The Member of the Wedding"
In "The Member of the Wedding," McCullers focuses again on a young, motherless girl, who is in the midst of growing up. The work had started out as a short story; the novel-length version was completed in 1945.
With war in the background, Frankie makes her way in the world. "She wanted to be a boy," McCullers explains. She wanted to go to war. "She thought about flying aeroplanes and winning gold medals for bravery." Then, a real prospect arises. Frankie's brother is getting married, and she believes she will go to live with him--with a new name and new existence. It's her one dream. Bernice tries to explain the importance of a name: "You have a name and one thing after another happens to you, and you behave in various ways and do things, so that soon the name begins to have meaning."
Really the story is about Frankie's great escape. She talks about it, plans for it, even tries to run away... But, as Bernice tells Frankie: "We all of us are somehow caught. We are born this way or that way and we don't know why. But we are caught anyhow."
In "The Member of the Wedding," McCullers focuses again on a young, motherless girl, who is in the midst of growing up. The work had started out as a short story; the novel-length version was completed in 1945.
With war in the background, Frankie makes her way in the world. "She wanted to be a boy," McCullers explains. She wanted to go to war. "She thought about flying aeroplanes and winning gold medals for bravery." Then, a real prospect arises. Frankie's brother is getting married, and she believes she will go to live with him--with a new name and new existence. It's her one dream. Bernice tries to explain the importance of a name: "You have a name and one thing after another happens to you, and you behave in various ways and do things, so that soon the name begins to have meaning."
Really the story is about Frankie's great escape. She talks about it, plans for it, even tries to run away... But, as Bernice tells Frankie: "We all of us are somehow caught. We are born this way or that way and we don't know why. But we are caught anyhow."
"The Clock Without Hands"
It is perhaps most appropriate that McCullers writes about death in her final novel. "Clock Without Hands" centers around a terminally ill druggist, J.T. Malone, as he comes to terms with death--the absence of life. As McCullers writes in the opening line of the novel, "Death is always the same, but each man dies in his own way."
How does one realize the full impact of death? How does a person listen as other people go on with life, realizing that life is precious, so short, and also so little appreciated? Malone is restless, as his body begins to fade. He reaches out and touches an object: a lamppost or a brick wall. He realizes, "The lamppost, the wall, the tree would exist when he was dead and the thought was loathsome to him."
It is perhaps most appropriate that McCullers writes about death in her final novel. "Clock Without Hands" centers around a terminally ill druggist, J.T. Malone, as he comes to terms with death--the absence of life. As McCullers writes in the opening line of the novel, "Death is always the same, but each man dies in his own way."
How does one realize the full impact of death? How does a person listen as other people go on with life, realizing that life is precious, so short, and also so little appreciated? Malone is restless, as his body begins to fade. He reaches out and touches an object: a lamppost or a brick wall. He realizes, "The lamppost, the wall, the tree would exist when he was dead and the thought was loathsome to him."
In those moments, how could life or death, or anything really make sense, as he "blundered among a world of incongruities in which there was no order of conceivable design"? Even in the confusion, some of McCullers most constant themes return: the need for love, and the gravitation toward hatred.
As death grows nearer, he doesn't know what he loves or hates, as the terror chokes him: "The terror questioned what would happen in those months--how long? that glared upon his numbered days. He was a man watching a clock without hands." He waits for the design to emerge, until the struggle and fear ceases. It is the end.
As death grows nearer, he doesn't know what he loves or hates, as the terror chokes him: "The terror questioned what would happen in those months--how long? that glared upon his numbered days. He was a man watching a clock without hands." He waits for the design to emerge, until the struggle and fear ceases. It is the end.
