The+Member+of+the+Wedding

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=**__The Member of the Wedding__**=

by Carson McCullers code format="html4strict" "The mind is like a richly woven tapestry in which the colors are distilled from the experiences of the senses, and the design drawn from the convolutions of the intellect.” -Carson McCullers (Think). code

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Carson McCuller's real name was Lula Carson Smith. She was born on February 19th, 1917 in the town of Columbus, Georgia as the eldest of three children. When she was young, she took piano lessons and was a very creative child. While sick with rheumatic fever in the winter of 1932, she decided that her life was going to be spent writing stories and plays. Her first short story "Sucker" was written while she was still in High School Smith graduated form Columbus High School in June of 1933. Smith soon enrolled in writing courses at Columbia where she stayed for four months before going back home to Columbus. Later that year, while back in New York, Smith enrolled herself in two semesters of writing courses at Washington Square College. During that same stay in New York, she was introduced to her future husband, James Reeves McCullers Jr. Her and James married in late September of 1937. As one of her first jobs, McCullers wrote on many papers such as the Columbus Ledger. McCuller's first published story was titled [|The Mute](published under the title [|The Heart is a Lonely Hunter]). McCullers would later go on to be published in such works as [|Harper's Bazaar]and [|Vogue]. Smith and McCullers divorce after he was caught forging checks on her account. Lula Carson Smith and James Reeves McCullers spend four years apart, but later remarry in a Civil Ceremony in February of 1945. In 1948, Lula attempts and fails suicide. Through all of the sickness and the rocky relationship with her husband, Lula Carson Smith was an incredible writer who wrote about everyday struggles in America. Smith suffered a final stroke on August 15 of 1967 and was in a coma for almost two months. Lula Carson Smith passed away on September 29th, 1967 (Biography).====== = = =__Plot Synopsis__= __[|The Member of the Wedding]__ by Carson McCullers is a wonderful Coming of Age Novella about Frankie Addams, a twelve-year-old from a small town in Georgia. The story takes place over four days in late August of 1944. Frankie's older brother, Jarvis, has been in Alaska where he met his soon to be bride. Jarvis and his fiancé, Janice, come home to Georgia to be married in Winter Hill, about one hundred miles away from Frankie's home.

Frankie is a troubled child whose mother died in childbirth, and whose father is always working. Her two best friends are Bernice, the Addam's family cook for most of her life, and Frankie's six year old cousin, John Henry West. Frankie wishes that she could leave her hometown and insists that she is going to live with Janice and Jarvis after their wedding. In anticipation of her new life, she changes her name to F. Jasmine so that her name too can start with J A just like Janice and Jarvis. While out one day, Frankie decides to go into the local bar, the Blue Moon. While Frankie is in the Blue Moon, she meets a red haired soldier who she talks to for a while before she leaves.

The day before Jarvis' wedding, Frankie wanders around the town just as she would any other day. While she's out she takes a trip to Sugarville, the next town over, and visits her fathers jewelry store. On her way back home, she finds the monkey-man and his monkey fighting with the red haired soldier. She and the red haired soldier walk together back to the center of town and he invites her on a date. Frankie stops yet again to the local bargain store to purchase an outfit for the wedding the next day.

On Saturday night, F. Jasmine and Bernice go to Big Mama's house so F. Jasmine can have her fortune told. Big Mama is an old African American woman and Bernice's mother. She can tell fortunes and read people's minds. Big Mama says that there is going to be a change in F. Jasmine's life. She says that F. Jasmine will live to marry a boy with blue eyes and light hair and that there is a trip ahead for her. Big Mama tells F. Jasmine that it is only a short trip.

F. Jasmine, her dad, John Henry West, and Bernice leave for the wedding in Winter Hill. When F. Jasmine gets there, she thinks that everything with the wedding is all wrong; the house, the people, the food, everything. F. Jasmine pleaded and begged Janice and Jarvis to take her with them, but they would not listen. She was to go back home with her father.

More Books by Carson McCullers:
//The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Reflections in a Golden Eye. Clock Without Hands. The Mortgaged Heart. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. The Square Root of Wonderful. Sucker. Sweet as a Pickle and Clean as a Pig.// code "A serious attempt to recapture that elusive moment when childhood melts into adolescence...touching." -Time

"Rarely has emotional turbulence been so delicately conveyed." -New York Times (Member, Back Cover)

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