The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers is the story of an adolescent girl who triumphs over loneliness and gains maturity through an identity that she creates for herself in her mind. It is with this guise that twelve year old Frankie Addams begins to feel confident about herself and life. The author seems to indicate that one can feel good about oneself through positive thinking regardless of reality. The novel teaches that one"s destiny is a self-fulfilled prophesy, seeing one"s self in a certain light oftentimes creates an environment where one might become that which one would like...
reader sees how the girl grows from a childish "Frankie," to a disillusioned "F. Jasmine," and eventually to a matured Frances. When F. Jasmine questions Berenice as to why it is illegal to change one"s name without consent of the court, the cook insightfully responds, "You have a name and one thing after another happens to you, and you behave in various ways and do various things, so that soon the name begins to have a meaning." No matter how we might change externals, it is only when our innermost feelings are altered that we truly change and grow.