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''The Member of the Wedding'' is a 1946 novel by Southern writer Carson McCullers. It took McCullers five years to complete, although she interrupted the work for a few months to write the short novel ''The Ballad of the Sad Café''.〔McDowell, Margaret B. ''Carson McCullers'', Boston, 1980〕 In a salacious letter to her husband Reeves McCullers, she explained that the novel was "one of those works that the least slip can ruin. It must be beautifully done. For like a poem there is not much excuse for it otherwise."〔quoted in ''Carson McCullers: A Life'', Josyane Savigneau, London, 2001〕 She originally planned to write a story about a girl who is in love with her piano teacher, but she had what she called "a divine spark: "Suddenly I said: Frankie is in love with her brother and the bride... The illumination focused the whole book."〔Letter to Tennessee Williams, quoted by Josyane Savigneau,''Carson McCullers: A Life''〕 ==Plot== The novel takes place over a few days in late August. It tells the story of 12-year-old tomboy Frankie Addams, who feels disconnected from the world; in her words, an "unjoined person." Frankie's mother died when she was born, and her father is a distant, uncomprehending figure. Her closest companions are the family's African American maid, Berenice Sadie Brown, and her six-year-old cousin, John Henry West. She has no friends in her small Southern town and dreams of going away with her brother and his bride-to-be on their honeymoon in the Alaskan wilderness. The novel explores the psychology of the three main characters and is more concerned with evocative settings than with incident. Frankie does, however, have a brief and troubling encounter with a soldier. Her hopes of going away are disappointed and, her fantasy destroyed, a short coda reveals how her personality has changed. It also recounts the fate of John Henry West, and Berenice Sadie Brown's future plans. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Member of the Wedding」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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