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- In “Sucker” two different stages of adolescent development collide. Pete and Sucker go through different psychological adjustments. The two boys discover the difficulties of adolescent romance, hero-worship, peer group formation and exclusion, and power reversal.
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Plot Summary. Pete is a teenage boy who sleeps in the same room as his 12-year-old cousin, Sucker. He has always bullied Sucker, but Sucker has always idolized him. One day, he hears Sucker crying in his sleep, and Pete decides to be kinder to Sucker.
- What Happens in “Sucker”?
- Narration of “Sucker”
- The Psychology of Transference
- Story Structure of “Sucker”
Sucker is the nickname of a gullible 12-year-old boy — symbolically nicknamed, of course. Later in the story, Sucker will lose this insulting nickname, which will signal the shift in power dynamics. Sucker idolises his older cousin, Pete, who is not very nice in return. They have grown up in the same house, more like brothers than cousins. The age ...
You might expect such a plot to have been written from Sucker’s point of view, but no. This is all narrated by the sixteen-year-old cousin and reads like a catharsis in which Pete wrestles with his feelings of being adored while adoring someone who ignores him. Shit travels down, as they say. Although Pete is sixteen at the time the story takes pla...
Shit travels down. That’s everyday speak for what psychologists call ‘transference‘. Freud came up with it. Transference describes a situation in which the feelings, desires, and expectations of one person are redirected and applied to another person. In the case of “Sucker”, Pete is rejected by a girl he likes. So he deals with this highly uncomfo...
Robert Phillips (1978) said of Carson McCullers’ characters that they seem fine on the surface but suffer from an “inner freaking-out”. They are “spiritual isolates of circumstance”. Themes of rejection (and unrequited love) are seen over and over, in both her novels and in her short stories. (Worth pointing out because the short stories are qualitatively different from the novels.) Pete is at the mercy of his own feelings of unrequited love toward a girl at school called Maybelle. Because of...
Pete wants to go out with Maybelle. This is the outworking of a deeper Desire — to be loved for all the right reasons — for being himself.
Maybelle is the romantic Opponent. Sucker is the proxy for the romantic opponent, since Maybelle is not there to heap shit on. Proxy romantic partner is strongly suggested at various points — the boys share a bed; Sucker’s wrists look thin and white like girls’ wrists. Maybelle’s hands are similarly ‘little and white’. When Pete dreams of Maybelle, he hears Sucker’s voice — the characters become conflated. This is a kind of coitus uninterruptus trope.
1. SUCKER by Carson McCullers (4202 words) It was always like I had a room to myself. Sucker slept in my bed with me but that didn't interfere with anything. The room was mine and I used it as...
Quick answer: Carson McCullers weaves the boys' personalities into the story without going overboard. The two boys meet each other on a train, and Sucker is described as a...
Aug 25, 2014 · During a raging dream about strangling Maybelle, Sucker wakes Pete to ask if he's ok. Pete proceeds to curse out Sucker and to insult and deride him for everything kind and gentle about the boy. Sucker changes quickly after this. He stops harrassing Pete and begins to hang out with a gang.
The short story "Sucker", by Carson McCullers, is obviously a tragedy. Carson's short story perfectly fits the tragic plotline. For the world is in conflict, Pete felt like he's been mean to Sucker.
There is a sense that Sucker, the narrator, and Maybelle all are trapped in a way by the town, and in a way the real conflict of the story is the struggle to grow up and find oneself...
