Love Poition

"It is known that if a message is written with lemon juice on a clean sheet of paper there will be no sign of it. But if the paper is held for a moment to the fire then the letters turn brown and the meaning becomes clear. Imagine that the whisky is the fire and that the message is that which is known only in the soul of a man - then the worth of Miss Amelia's liquor can be understood." (10)

Liquor plays an important role in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. The townspeople love it as well as Cousin Lymon, who enjoys the company and attention that the liquor brings in the cafe. I found this interesting since liquor is usually associated with substituting sadness for bliss, then sooner or later the effect wears off and back to sadness.

Is McCullers making some kind of similarity between liquor and love? Would this story have the same impact if food, another thing that can bring someone happiness, or anything else were used to bring people together? Is there any connection between the description of Amelia's whisky and the characters?