POST: Great Lines from Member of the Wedding (closing 9/30)

Carson McCullers is an American writer known for her splendid prose style. Being a Southern writer, she really emphasizes interesting sentences and turns of phrases. This is certainly a novel where the reader, from time to time, stops and notes a really well-phrased sentence or passage.

Your task is to share one of your favorite sentences (or passages) from the novel. Quote the sentence and give us the page number in parenthesis. Then, feel free to share your reaction to the line.


Here's an example:

"But what is it all about? People loose and at the same time caught. Caught and loose. All these people and you don't know what joins them up. There's bound to be some sort of reason and connection. Yet somehow I can't seem to name it. I don't know. "

"If you did, you would be God, " said Berenice. (115)


Here we see Frankie trying to understand the relationships between people. In essence, she's trying to see why people are the way they are and interact the way they do. She's questioning the world outside of herself and, at the same time, she is finding confusion and uncertainty.

"'Listen, ' F. Jasmine said. 'What I've been trying to say is this. Doesn't it strike you as strange that I am I, and you are you? I am F. Jasmine Addams. And you are Berenice Sadie Brown. And we can look at each other, and touch each other, and stay together, year in and year out, in the same room. Yet I am I, and you are you. And I can't ever be anything else but me, and you can't ever be anything else but you. Have you ever thought of that? And does it seem to you strange?'
Berenice had been rocking slightly in the chair. She was not sitting in a rocking chair, but she had been titlting back in the straight chair, then letting the front legs hit the floor with little taps, her dark stiff hand held to the table edge for balance. She stopped rocking herself when F. Jasmine spoke. And finally she said: 'I have thought of it occasionally.'"
(pg. 109 paragraph 2-3)

I loved this passage because it shows us two things. One, that Frankie (or F. Jasmine) thinks much deeper and of much more meaningful things than most girls her age. And two, it shows us something about Frankie and Berenice's relationship. It tells us that even if sometimes they can be mean and hurtful towards one another, in the end, they still get along and can talk openly with each other.

I noticed that the author makes things more complicated and drawn out, for example she says,

"They walked down the side street, on their shrunken noontime shadows." (McCullers, 64)

instead of just saying that it was noon.

"John Henry got meningitis and died in ten days."

wow that kinda suprised me.

"They are the we of me"


I believe that this quote demonstrates Frankie's strong feelings about the wedding. She claims that other people have groups, that refer to themselves as "we" but she only has Janice and Jarvis to claim as her "group." This quote also demonstrates that Frankie is a loner and has no friends.

"Those beautiful butterflies," he said. "They are trying to get in."

Frankie watched the soft moths tremble and press against the window screen. The moths came every evening when the lamp on her desk was lighted. They came from out of the August night and fluttered and clung against the screen.

"To me it is the irony of fate," she said. They way they come here. Those moths could fly anywhere. Yet they keep hanging around the windows of this house."

pgs. 11-12

I thought it was beautifully written, showing both John Henry's innocence and appreciation for the small things in life, as well as Frankie's pity and deep thought about everything in life.




And of course, "Grey eyes is glass."

(I don't know which page)

"They are the we of me" (p. 39)

In this quote the "they" is, of course, refering to Jarvis and Janice. Frankie has not been a part of a group for a long while. Her whole struggle is to find a group to be a part of. The second sentence of the book from page one supports this fact: "This was the summer when for a long time she had been a member." When Jarvis and Janice finally decide to get married, Frankie realizes she is finally a member of something, a member of the wedding. This point is a marker for where she can move on in her character developement. That is when she decides to change her name to F. Jasmine, her name being a "J A" name just like Janice and Jarvis. She thinks she will fit in and be a part of their marriage, when we all know she is setting herself up for another disappointment.

"If you start with A and go on up to G, there is a curious thing that seems to make the difference between G and A all the difference in the world. Twice as much difference as between any other two notes in the scale. Yet they are side by side there on the piano just as close together as the other notes." (p. 103)

F. Jasmine makes this remark about the piano tuner, while sitting at the table with Berenice and John Henry. Te noise of the piano tuning annoys them but it also has a deeper meaning. It represents a feeling that something has not been resolved or something is incomplete. The piano serves as a metaphor for the weekend described in the novel. Frankie is confused and disconnected with the world. She is desprete to find adulthood, which seems out of reach. She has to find a resolution in order to bring inner peace.

"They are the we of me"

i thought that this quote described the relationship that Frankie thinks is between her and her brother and her brother's fiance. This quote tells that these three people are a one small family not including Berenice, her father, and the other people she lives with. Frankis consideres them her own which puts the three of them into one whole group.

"Jarvis, when she went to find him in the yard, lifted her up in a rough-house way and said: Frankie the lankie the alaga fankie, the tee-legged, toe-legged bow-legged Frankie."

A line where you can just say "What?"

I pretty much agree with everyone. "They are the we of me" shows that she feels she finally belongs with someone, even though it is shown later in the book that they don't want her. "If you start with A and go on up to G, there is a curious thing that seems to make the difference between G and A all the difference in the world. Twice as much difference as between any other two notes in the scale. Yet they are side by side there on the piano just as close together as the other notes." Also shows an interesting thought process that Frankie was going through. It's unpleasant to hear 7 notes of an octave. It's just like what's happening to Frankie, she is almost at adulthood, but not quite. It's also kind of like how she feels incomplete without Jarvis and Janice.

Pg. 113 "We all of us somehow caught."
Bernice started talking about being caught with this sentence. The phrase expresses that we are "caught" or placed into life as a person, any size, shape, race and there is nothing we can possibly do to change its course or destination. We are who we are. You are you and me is me and nothing can ever change that.

"You jealous,"said Berenice "Go and behold yourself in the mirror. I can see fromt he color of your eye."

"'This' she said. ' I see a green tree. And to me it is green. And you would call the tree green also. And we would agree on this. But is the color you see as green the same color as I see as green? Or say we both call a color black. But how do we know that what you see as black is the same color I see as black?'
Bernice said after a moment: ' Those things we just cannot prove.'" (pg 109)

I really like this quote because it really made me think. You and I can see something and agree on what it is, and how it looks like, but we can't really know whether or not what we're looking at is the same thing in each other's eyes.

aro3 *133t* wrote:

"John Henry got meningitis and died in ten days."

wow that kinda suprised me.

I thought that was surprising too!! It was also really sad because I liked John Henry. He was so innocent and he was Frankie's companion. However, I think that his death was necessary because it represents Frankie's newfound maturity and independence. She has moved past her phase of loneliness and darkness, and that is why John Henry had to die.

SamC3 wrote:

"It was better to be in a jail where you could bang the walls than in a jail you could not see."
- Frankie p. 148 para. 5

I agree with Sam because I really like this quote too. I feel that this quote demonstrates how much Frankie hates, and is confused with her life.

"John Henery had menigitis and after ten days he was dead. Until it was all over, Frances had never believed for a serious minute that he could die." -pg. 152 para. 1

I would never expect that John Henery died in hte end of the novel and Frances certainly didn't either. THis quote reminds me of the saying, "you don't know what you got until it's gone."

"They are the we of me." (McCullers, 39)
I think that is a very memorable line. Frankie believed that she belonged with her brother and sister-in-law, and felt that they completed her even though they did not share her feelings.

"...while we're talking right now, this very minute is passing. And it will never come again."

This quote just gave me a feeling that after something happened, there are no turning back. Like when time pass, we can't go back to that moment anymore. So really, there are no take back.

"They are the we of me." (pg.39)

I know this line has been used alot but I agree with it. I agree with Kyle in how it shows that Frankie has no friends because she was rejected from the club and so she looks for a group to turn to that is older and knows about adolescence. She is obsessed with the fact of growing up and she had no one better to turn to that her brother and his fiance. This quote kind of describes how she thinks she is part of the marriage and some part of her thinks that she belongs with the couple.

"It was better to be in a jail where you could bang the walls than in a jail you could not see." pg. 148

This quote gave me the feeling that she would rather be punished for what she did wrong rather than be punished for what she didn't know. She would know her limits and try to fix what she did wrong instead of continuing to make the same mistake.

"They are the we of me." pg. 39

It's a quote that relates to everyone. Every person belongs to a group, and Frankie just hadn't found hers yet.

I really liked the quote "they are the we of me" it reminded me of my friends and I.They complete me as a whole.

"'Listen, ' F. Jasmine said. 'What I've been trying to say is this. Doesn't it strike you as strange that I am I, and you are you? I am F. Jasmine Addams. And you are Berenice Sadie Brown. And we can look at each other, and touch each other, and stay together, year in and year out, in the same room. Yet I am I, and you are you. And I can't ever be anything else but me, and you can't ever be anything else but you. Have you ever thought of that? And does it seem to you strange?'" page 109

I really liked this thought from Frankie. I love how she is digging deeper trying to find herself and I, too, have thought of this a lot. Her way of thinking is so unique and so out there and thats why I love how in depth this character is.