Carson McCullers’ short story “The Jockey” was first published in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, a collection of short stories, in 1951. The 1950’s in America were a tumultuous time, and McCullers could clearly feel the tension and strain of the changing societal tides when he wrote “The Jockey.” “The Jockey” tells the story of three characters: first, Bitsy Barlow, the titular jockey, but also Sylvester the trainer, Simmons the bookie, and finally, the “rich man” who funds the horse racing outfit. The interactions between these four characters are very symbolic, and are demonstrative of the divide between the socioeconomic classes in the United States.
The first indication that the reader has that something is amiss comes early in the story, when the narrator describes the jockey’s suit and general appearance. “He was wearing a suit of green Chinese silk that evening, tailored precisely and the size of a costume outfit for a child. The shirt was yellow, the tie striped with pastel colors His face was drawn, ageless, and gray” (McCullers). The reader has the sense that the jockey himself is tired and worn, almost mummified; however, for some reason that is not yet clear, he has been dressed in a green silk suit and sent to dinner. The jockey’s clothing is in direct contrast to the rich man’s, however, who seems to want to join the racing crowd without being part of it: he is dressed in “twill riding pants, unpolished boots, and a shabby brown jacket — this was his outfit day and night in the racing season, although he was never seen on a horse” (McCullers). The rich man seems to be using his position as owner to join the riding community without really being a part of it.
Bitsy is physically and emotionally separate from the three men at the table, and yet all four of the men share a common trade. The most aloof and removed of them, the unnamed “rich man,” indicates that he wants Bitsy to come and sit with them, while Simmons expresses his discomfort and Sylvester tries to explain away Bitsy’s recent strangeness. Sylvester the trainer, the individual who works closest to Bitsy and the horse race in general, seems to have some empathy for what Bitsy is experiencing; however, the rich man and the bookie have little empathy and no understanding of the problems that Bitsy is facing.
The horse race and the world surrounding horse racing is symbolic, in this case, of life; each individual plays a part in life, whether it is the jockey, the trainer, the bookie, or the rich man. The jockey does the work-- he rides the horses and must keep his body lean, while the others profit off the sweat and pain that he goes through daily. The rich man represents the rich and their inability to understand the people in the lower socioeconomic classes.
Sylvester and Simmons represent two different halves of the rising middle class in America during the 1950s. Sylvester represents those who obtained middle-class status but still try to remember their roots, while Simmons, the bookie, seems to have lost all compassion for the lower classes. Simmons shows no empathy; instead, he dismisses the pain that the jockey feels, much in the same way that the growing middle class dismissed the pain of the lower classes.
Bitsy cannot eat, Sylvester explains, and he is having difficulties dealing with the physical strains of the horse race as he gets older. Bitsy seems to be terrified of the prospect of losing his ability to jockey, like the kid in the story who broke his leg. The rich man tells Bitsy that “these things happen” but he has no true understanding of what it means to work and rely on one’s body to work; for this reason, Bitsy can be thought to represent the common man. Bitsy’s body, according to Sylvester, is shutting down slowly; unlike the kid with the broken leg, Bitsy’s removal from the horse race of life will be a slow, creeping removal, but he can feel the onset of it coming.
Works cited
Mccullers, Carson. The ballad of the sad café. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1963. Print.
