Cousin Lymon Character Analysis Essay

The world’s best novella’s are those that leave the reader in shock and constantly curious as to what might happen next. The novella, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers, is a novella that follows the main theme of love that involves the main characters Miss Amelia, Marvin Macy, and cousin Lymon all connected under one love triangle. Throughout the novel cousin Lymon proves himself time and time again to be very dependent on others,a dramatic attention seeker, as well as a grotesque.

Cousin Lymon is a character unlike any other in the novella. He shows up in a deserted town declaring that he is related to the very wealthy miss Amelia.Cousin Lymon not only has a unique personality but his appearance is also extremely grotesque. “The man was a hunchback. He was scarcely more than four feet tall’(McCullers,6).Moreover, Despite his hideous appearance Lymon is very intelligent and is able to convince miss Amelia that he is indeed her cousin. Cousin Lymon desperately tries to prove his relation to miss Amelia by showing her an old photograph. “ The hunchback scrambled among these belongings and brought out an old photograph”(McCullers,8). Regardless of the fact that it was nearly impossible to identify the two women in the photography, cousin Lymon successfully tricks miss Amelia into believing him. Cousin Lymon brings
Cousin Lymon is a very energetic character who thrives off of being the centre of attention. He is also very wise and manipulative as he is able to take so much from miss Amelia without returning a single favour. In the long run cousin Lymon is nothing but a selfish man who wants to succeed but with minimal effort put in. As a whole, love is complicated between two people and bringing in a third leaves all three people nothing but lonely and