Sucker

By Carson McCullers

Topic: Relationships:

Brotherly love and hate; Falling in and out of love.

Themes: Searching for self-identity Love and loneliness Spiritual isolation Understanding our emotions: guilt, conscience, confusion

Topic and Theme

Initiating incident: Pete falls in love with Maybelle and, for

the first time, begins to treat Sucker with friendship and affection.

Complication/Crisis: Maybelle dumps Pete and, in his own humiliation, he turns on Sucker and humiliates him.

Two climatic points: ‘You’re a swell kid, Sucker,’ I said. It seemed to me

suddenly that I did like him more than anybody else… ‘You’re too dumb. Just like your name – a dumb Sucker.’

Crisis and Climax

External – Man vs. Man

Pete vs. Sucker Pete vs. Maybelle

Internal – Man vs. Self Pete vs. his conscience

Conflict

Irony:It is ironic that Pete now feels uncomfortable in what was his ‘own room’ for so long. Sucker has succeeded in ‘putting Pete in his place’, a place that once belonged to Sucker.

Moral:Treat as others as you wish to be treated (The Golden Rule) or ‘what goes around, comes around’.

Role Reversal

P. 182.

‘There is one thing I have learned, but it makes me feel guilty and is hard to figure out. If a person admires you a lot you despise him and don’t care – and it is the person who doesn’t notice you that you are apt to admire.’

Relevant passages

P. 184

‘Anyway I guess you understand people better when you are happy than when something is worrying you.’p.185

‘I felt so good…I wanted to be friendly with everybody.’

P. 184

‘It seemed to me suddenly that I did like him more than anybody else I knew – more than any other boy, more than my sisters, more in a certain way even than Maybelle. I felt good all over and it was like when they play sad music in the movies. I wanted to show Sucker how much I really thought of him and make up for the way I had always treated him.’

In groups of 2-3, draw a plot line for Sucker giving specific details for each section to illustrate the causes and consequences of Pete’s abusive relationship with Sucker:

Exposition Initiating incident Rising action Crisis – Conflict Falling action Dénouement

Group work: Plot line

HCE 9: Relationships

• Think of situations where you have seen one person being treated well or poorly because of the other person’s particular mood.

• How can we maintain healthy relationships with our friends and family or dating partners?

Abusive Relationships

What are the signs?

What kinds of behaviour constitute abuse?

What kind of people become targets of abuse?

Why was Sucker a good target for Pete?

What can you do to help yourself or someone else who is a victim of abuse?

What can you do if you are the abuser?

What could Pete have done?

In each of the three stories we have read, young people have faced conflict: between men and women for equal rights; between family members; and within themselves -- struggling with the guilt for

having treated loved ones poorly.

What personal philosophy guides you in maintaining healthy relationships?

HCE Reflection

How do you view/judge others? How does this

impact the way you treat others?

How do you view/judge yourself? How does this

impact the way you let others treat you?

What personal rule, motto or belief guides you in

maintaining good relations with others?

A personal philosophy