Blues Ain't No Mockingbird

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1971

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Summary

Background

Story Analysis

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Character Analysis

The Narrator

It’s never stated how old the unnamed narrator is, only that she is young enough to enjoy stomping in frozen puddles and to want a turn in the tire swing. Her parents likewise go unmentioned, but she’s lived with Granny and Granddaddy Cain through at least three different places (Judson’s woods, the Cooper place, the dairy). She is a close observer of her Granny, ever aware of where she is and what she’s doing, but she also closely watches Cathy, who seems to understand a lot about Granny’s motivations, “even though Cathy ain’t but a third cousin we picked up on the way last Thanksgivin visitin” (132).

The narrator is the protagonist insofar as she is the most prominent and enduring presence in the narrative. Because she primarily observes the plot action rather than advancing it, however, Granddaddy Cain’s character is the more conventionally heroic—his actions transform the situation and determine the plot arc. Nevertheless, the narrator’s consciousness is the organizing center of the story, and the world is translated through her perspective. Her character therefore governs the essence of the narrative, as her childlike viewpoint renders the plot events with a lightheartedness not otherwise possible: Granny’s long history of tribulation is serious subject matter, as is the county men’s intrusive behavior, yet the narrator’s naivete and wit imbue the story with a sense of levity. If Granny were to narrate the story, the comic element would be either absent or drastically mediated.

Childlikeness is among the narrator’s most salient features, and she tends to look to her elders to learn about the world. For example, to make sense of the world, she often refers to something Cathy has told her, as when Granddaddy Cain appears from the woods and the county men approach him; the narrator reflects, “Folks like to go for him sometimes. Cathy say it’s because he’s so tall and silent and like a king” (135). Cathy is a source of information for the narrator, but the narrator is also discerning enough to notice when Cathy is putting on different personas: “Cathy grown-up,” “Cathy actress.” In fact, the narrator gives the final moment of the story to Cathy (when Cathy says she’s going to tell a story about a hammer)—but first, the narrator notices that her Granny is humming and making the rum cakes again, an indication that the moment has passed and the story is ending. The narrator is young but wry, a dutiful citizen of her family.

Granny

The first glimpse of Granny’s character is via the narrator realizing the frozen puddle she and Cathy are stomping resembles “the crystal paperweight Granny kept in the parlor” (129). Readers know that Granny has something beautiful and cherished that she keeps in the parlor: She likes and has pretty things, and she takes care of them. The next bit of information is that she is in the kitchen, carefully ladling rum over cakes, likely for some kind of gathering, which provides more information: She is involved in her community. The next bit of information is that Granny had done similar tasks making syrup in the Judson’s woods, making cider at the Cooper place, and scooping buttermilk and cheese at the dairy. Granny is a hardworking, careful, modern woman. Right after this, Granny speaks for the first time: “Go tell that man we ain’t a bunch of trees” (129). Her directive indicates that Granny has seen and noticed far more than the narrator has at this point, since this is the first time the narrative acknowledges there are even county men on the property.

Granny meets the men and dismisses them, even coming off the porch and standing face-to-face with them until they back off. However, when the men only back up and don’t leave, this takes a clear toll. The narrator sees Granny in the kitchen with her hand to her head, hears her groaning in distress. In her every word and action, Granny is adamant that the county men—and the photographer in her story about the man on the bridge—are taking something that isn’t being offered, and that is a wrong she is unwilling to abide. Granny has moved her family several times, demonstrating that she will do what it takes to guard her privacy and her autonomy, and it’s this threat of Granny snapping that drives the climax of the story, when the hawk is killed and the camera is destroyed. The men (and their unwelcome surveillance) gone, Granny can go back to being herself, a careful, community-oriented grandmother.

Granddaddy Cain

The narrator introduces Granddaddy Cain when she describes the family’s various moves over the years: “Granny goin crazy, and Granddaddy Cain pullin her off the people, sayin, ‘Now, now, Cora’” (132). Granddaddy Cain wasn’t happy when they had to move, as it made him “madder than Granny in the first place” (132), but he did it anyway. However, though he is relatively deferential toward his wife, he is the most directly active force in the narrative. This trait is evident as soon as he emerges from the woods with the dying chicken hawk on his shoulder, nails it to the shed door, and kills its mate. He demonstrates similar decisiveness when he breaks the men’s camera, first simply holding out his hand: “They were big enough for motors, his hands were. He held that one hand out all still and it getting to be not at all a hand but a person in itself” (135).

The narrator repeats what Cathy has told her, that Granddaddy Cain is “tall and silent and like a king” (135). He is a big man unafraid of bloody, hard work, and he will do what he can to prevent his wife from going too far. Whether this is because he is wary of the consequences or because he loves her, or a combination of both, is never said. Granny refers to him as “Mister Cain” (134) when she directs him to get rid of the county men, a formality that indicates a tension. Nevertheless, Granddaddy Cain does what he’s told, and so it also feels professional, a sign of mutual respect: Mister Cain, problem-solver. He addresses the men as he dismisses them, saying, “This is our own place” (136), showing that while he may not like his wife’s methods, he is in perfect agreement with her reasoning.

Cathy

Cathy’s age is also unspecified, but she is an authority figure for the narrator and can interpret the grown-ups’ actions for her. She explains, and she assesses. When she first speaks, she says the frozen, splintered mud puddle looks like a spider-web made by “a sort of weird spider, I guess, with many mental problems” (129). Cathy is humorous and sharp, and she giggles as Granny addresses the men; she understands what Granny is capable of and that these men are more preposterous than intimidating.

Cathy often explains Granny’s actions to the narrator, and she sometimes mimics Granny, as when Granny finishes the story about the man on the bridge and Cathy turns to retell “Goldilocks” to the children. Though “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” is a children’s fairytale, Cathy’s selection of the story shows a sophisticated awareness: The character Goldilocks acts entitled to the bears’ belongings, just as the cameraman in Granny’s story acted entitled to photographing the man on the bridge. Likewise, Goldilocks “barge[s] into” someone else’s home, just as the county men are doing.

Cathy is a third cousin of the narrator’s who was “picked up on the way” (132), indicating she has a past that enables her to understand adults better than the narrator can. It’s Cathy who says people like to come for Granddaddy Cain, and it’s Cathy who understands that the male hawk is coming for its mate. Finally, it’s Cathy who decides she’ll tell a story “about the proper use of the hammer” (136)—her authority begins the story and ends it, and she has learned something new about adults that she’ll use to tell her own story.