McCullers, Carson: 1917-1967
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, 1951 - Thematic Parallels: Unconventional Love
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McCullers, Carson: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, 1951
The main topic of this novella is love’s imbalance—how it shapes, consumes, and often destroys people. - The following books are thematically simliar. They lend themselves well to being read in groups, compared with one another, or used to teach a similar topic over an extended period with a class:
- Albee, Edward: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, 2002, ~60pp
This is a provocative play where a seemingly normal suburban architect harbors a consuming, taboo love for a goat.
- Both works share a vision of love as irrational, taboo, and destructive—something that isolates, betrays, and ultimately leaves the lover alone. They use grotesque or absurd modes to highlight how love destabilizes identity, community, and human dignity.. - Higgins, Colin: Harold and Maude, 1971, ~110pp
This is a novel about an unconventional romantic relationship between a 20-year-old boy and a 79-year old lady.
- Both works explore love between outsiders, show its power to briefly redeem loneliness, and underscore its inherent imbalance and impermanence. - McCracken, Elizabeth: The Giant’s House, 1996, ~290pp
This novel focuses on unusual, poignant human relationships.
- Both works portray eccentric outsiders in small towns who pursue love that society views as unnatural, exploring themes of loneliness, dependency, and the strangeness of human desire. They present love as obsessive, awkward, and socially misunderstood, showing how love often defies convention. - Williams, Tennessee: The Glass Menagerie, 1945, ~130pp
This play explores family dynamics, isolation, and complicated emotional ties..
- Both Williams and McCullers explore the Southern Gothic terrain of loneliness, the grotesque, unrequited love, and the tragic impossibility of escape, using lyrical, mythic storytelling voices.
- Albee, Edward: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, 2002, ~60pp
- List of general discussion questions on Unconventional Love (pdf)
- List of essay prompts on Unconventional Love (pdf)