Maturation

“…her world seemed layered in three different parts, all the twelve years of the old Frankie, the present day itself, and the future ahead…” pg. 61

As Frankie transforms into F. Jasmine, she feels that there has been a shift in the direction her life is headed. This shift transcends her feeling of belonging but no one else takes notice. In part 1 she is far from adulthood, just entering her preteen years. She knows nothing of sex, as evidenced by her theory that Mrs. Marlowe was having a fit. McCullers skips over this defining day to refer back to it later. McCullers ignores the standard form of telling a story of depicting events in chronological order in order to allow the audience to see the difference and review her previous actions which lead to this immense change. While F. Jasmine feels that something in her world has been altered, it is really her. She would not have experienced such a strange change of events if this feeling had not prompted her to leave her home in search of something. Encountering the red headed soldier springboards her into many new experiences. He is the catalyst that sends her into the real world. We learn that red is her favorite color. McCuller’s purpose behind giving Frankie such a habit of describing the habit of things serves several purposes. Her favorite color is rarely mentioned. She thinks her red blood will be a cut above that of the other blood donors. Ironically she isn’t even allowed to donate. When she meets an older man who expresses sexual interest in her, she is attracted to him by his red hair. Red stands for an adult world of which she has only had a small taste and still has little hope of fully understanding despite the fact that she thinks she is very close to attaining all the life knowledge she needs.

Since red has come to represent sexual activity and other aspects of the adult world F. Jasmine doesn’t yet understand, why is the bar named the Blue Moon? The name could be a form of irony, or refer to a rare event with strange results.