The Member of the Wedding (pg. 100)

“The old Frankie. She had been in her seat on the second row and she stamped and put two fingers in her mouth and began to whistle…The old Frankie had never admitted love. Yet here F. Jasmine was sitting at the table with her knees crossed, and now and then she patted her bare foot on the floor in an accustomed way, and nodded at what Berenice was saying. Furthermore, when she reached out quietly toward the Chesterfield package beside the saucer of melted butter, Berenice did not slap her hand away, and F. Jasmine took herself cigarette. She and Bernice were two grown people smoking at the dinner table.” (pg. 100)

This passage refers to the first time that F. Jasmine has ever engaged in a conversation about love. There is an interesting interplay between silence and noise that is apparent in this scene, not to mention in several other portions of part 2. The narrator states that the old Frankie instigated a lot of commotion during a show regarding love, but now F. Jasmine has matured and is participating in an adult conversation about a topic she was previously reluctant to consider. This passage is representative of her conflict between childhood and pettiness, and the inevitable transition she must make into late adolescence and maturity. McCullers uses silence and noise to emphasize the conflict Frankie is facing. Juvenile Frankie makes lots of noise when confronted with a matter that is beyond her maturity level, while sophisticated F. Jasmine sits quietly at the table with Berenice and takes a cigarette. There are several instances in which this contrast between silence and noise can be seen. For example a few pages before, F. Jasmine sees 4 girls from the club walk by. She says that the old Frankie would have waited expectantly to receive an invitation and then shouted at them upon not receiving it. But instead F. Jasmine watched them quietly and supposedly was no longer jealous. There are also times in which periods of silence are abruptly interrupted by noise, such as the sound of the piano, further signifying Frankie’s internal conflict to achieve some level of maturity that she does not necessarily comprehend.

What significance do you see in the interaction between noise and silence? Are there other moments in the novel that this interplay occurs?