1. Sucker
By Carson McCullers

2. Topic and Theme Topic: Relationships: Themes: 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

3. Crisis and Climax
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.’

4. Conflict External – Man vs. Man Internal – Man vs. Self
Pete vs. Sucker
Pete vs. Maybelle
Internal – Man vs. Self
Pete vs. his conscience

5. Role Reversal Irony: Moral:
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’.

6. Relevant passages
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.’

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

8. 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.’

9. Group work: Plot line Exposition Initiating incident Rising action
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

10. 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?

11. 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?

12. HCE Reflection What personal philosophy guides you
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?

13. A personal philosophy
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?