The Imagery of Frankie’s Anxiety
McCullers explicates, “Because she could not break this tightness gathering within her,she would hurry to do something. She would go home and put the coal scuttle on her head, like a crazy person’s hat, and walk around the kitchen table. She would do anything that suddenly occurred to her-but whatever she did was always wrong, and not at all what she had wanted. Then having done these wrong and silly things, she would stand, sickened and empty, the kitchen door and say: “I just wish I could tear down this whole town.” Frankie is categorically depressed; she finds it problematic to diminish her depression. Her distractions are not operative in diminishing her dejection. The sentiment of emptiness implies that she is not relishing her life. The assertion of yearning to tear the town is a form of projection which indicates that she faults the town for her anxiety.
The Imagery of the Clubhouse
McCullers illustrates, “There was in the neighbourhood a clubhouse, and Frankie was not a member. The members of the club were girls who were thirteen and fourteen and even fifteen years old. They had parties with boys on Saturday night. Frankie knew all the club members and until this summer she had been like a young member of their crowd, but now they had this club and she was not a member. They had said she was too young and mean. On Saturday night she could hear the terrible music and see from far away their light. Sometimes she went around the alley behind the clubhouse and stood near a honeysuckle fence. She stood in the alley and watched and listened.” Denying Frankie membership at the clubhouse renders her bitter and lonesome. Although her age disqualifies her from being a member, she considers that she ought to be allowed there. Had Frankie not been interested in the clubhouse, she would not have eavesdropped to the partying. The clubhouse validates the extent of Frankie’s exclusion from her peers, which infuriates her.
