Identity and Self

Twelve-year-old Frankie is entering the phase of her adolescence in which she undergoes dramatic changes and begins seriously considering who she is as a person and who she will become. McCullers describes Frankie's unrest in part one, writing:

Very early in the morning she would sometimes go
out into the yard and stand for a long time looking
at the sunrise sky. And it was as though a question
came into her heart, and the sky did not answer.
Things she had never noticed much before began to
hurt her: home lights watched from the evening sidewalks,
an unknown voice in the alley. She would
stare at the lights and listen to the voice, and something
inside her stiffened and waited. But the lights
would darken, the voice fall silent, and though she
waited, that was all. She was afraid of these things
that made her...