Abstract
The main themes treated in the novels of Carson McCullers are solitude, and the pain that accompanies the loneliness of love. McCullers is a writer who explores the loneliness of man.
The Ballad of the Sad Café, published in 1951, illustrates the thought and the ideas of McCullers' well. The physical deformity of the main characters is matched by their crooked minds. Since they are physically deformed, they cannot participate in society. They are alienated from others and breed mental divergence. Being grotesque, they cannot avoid alienation and loneliness. Because of this, they ask for love. However, in the works of McCullers, loneliness will not necessarily be cured by love, either and nrequited love will heighten them solitary situation. McCullers proposes in the novel that man is not saved by love, either. The love that McCullers describes does not require to be returned. Therefore, man does not necessarily escape loneliness by love.
I analyze the meaning of the characters' grotesqueness. Moreover, I consider the cause why the main characters become “the lover” and the beloved.
