A last difference about that morning was the way her world seemed layered in three different parts, all the twelve years of the old Frankie, the present day itself, and the future ahead when the three of them would be together in all the many distant places.

This quote is a description of F. Jasmine's state of mind, which takes place in Part Two, Chapter 1, just as she leaves the Blue Moon bar for the first time on Saturday afternoon. First, it tells the reader that this day is to be one of the most defining and life changing in F. Jasmine's life. This focus on an acute moment development is a hallmark quality of a bildungsroman. This genre of novel generally describes a young person who goes on some journey, be it literal or metaphorical, and comes out a changed person in the end as a result of all that he or she has learned along the way. Another, more succinct way to describe this format is "coming-of-age." So here is F. Jasmine, on a kind of preliminary journey through the town, getting ready to make an even more important journey to Winter Hill to attend the wedding. In her jaunt through the town, she comes face-to-face with a life changing experience: meeting the soldier, who eventually tries to have sex with her. Were it not for her journey, she never would have begun to finally learn about sex. As a result, she grows and changes.

Secondly, the quote is a kind of meta-analysis of the structure of the novella itself. The book is also divided into three parts, with three distinct styles of description as well as names for Frankie. But time does not necessarily flow as logically forward according to McCullers. The author skips over one part of Saturday in Part One and switches back to it in Part Two. By jostling the time frame like this, McCullers disorients the reader and brings them into the fantasy nature of the F. Jasmine experience. She tells us that F. Jasmine is mistaken about time and that it will not always move forward logically. Which further tells us that life is bound to make unexpected turns.

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