Carson McCullers' story "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" is written in a non-sensationalistic style, and its narrative voice is omniscient, objective, and descriptive. The subject matter has sensationalistic elements, including questions of sex and violence, but these are muted through most of the story. What the author does is create a strong sense of doom as well as suspense through a number of narrative techniques that on the one hand withhold information for a time to keep the reader interested while at the same time hinting at what is to come so the reader tries always to see the forces at work, to figure out how they will converge, and to recognize revelations as they are made.
The first element that contributes to this sense of suspense is the fact that the story is structured as something that has taken place in the past, that is therefore completed before it is told, and that is being remembered. This is made evident in the opening introductory section, which is set in the "present" as the narrator notes the outcome in a way that deepens the sense of mystery by referring to terrible events without telling what they were. What is evident is that these events have had their effect: "Otherwise the town is lonesome, sad, and like a place that is far off and estranged from all other places in the world" (3). The description of the town is such that we see a place where something happened, where people remember, and where they are in fact reminded by the face at the window: "It is a face like the terrible dim faces known in dreams. . ." (3). In this town, "there was once a caf?" that is now boarded up and "unlike any other place for many miles around" (4). Immediately, the reader wants to know why this is so, and the rest of the story is meant to answer that question.
Foreshadowing is used throughout the story, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly. Foreshadowing involves indicating that there is some informatio...