The loneliness of The Member of the Wedding

The long second section of Carson McCullers's "The Member of the Wedding" takes place, at least so far, on one day - this is that rare novel/novella that comes very close to honoring the Aristotelian unities of time, place, and action - and though not a whole lot happens - Frankie (now calling herself F. Jasmine) shops for a dress for the wedding, walks around downtown telling everyone about the big event - odd behavior for a 12-year-old, has an encounter with a soldier on leave (it's during the 2nd World War) who tries to pick her up - as you can see, McCullers is uncertain and uneven about the age, maturity, and sexual orientation of Frankie, just as Frankie herself (and maybe McCullers herself at that age) is uncertain and questioning, and then the second half of the second section brings Frankie back to the Addams home where she, and Berenice and young cousin John Henry engage in very wide-ranging discussion about the events past and to come: the great strength of McCullers's writing is the quirky dialogue that moves by fits and starts, full of Southern loquaciousness and concision and full of odd turns of phrase - her dialogue by no means advances the action but it sharply delineates character and gives firm sense of place as well. As we near the conclusion, the question really is: who is Frankie? How serious is she in her need and desire to join her brother and his bride in their life after the wedding? She is not a typical adolescent, though the anxiety she feels throughout is something most adolescents can identify with or at least recognize - but it does seem to me that Frankie is disturbed in a way that McCullers keeps just below the surface: she's sassy to the point of crude and unfeeling toward Berenice (her family cook, a black woman of about 40, unlucky in love), and then strangely tender and vulnerable - she's a lonely, almost isolate young girl, trying to figure out who she is, just as we are, without very few signposts.