a) One of the most obvious traits of Southern U.S. Gothic literary Tradition is love and loss. In the story the main character, Pete, is in love with a girl named Maybelle. He thinks about her at night and watches her in class daily. He tries really hard to become friends with her and succeeds but later on loses her because she liked another guy. Pete also has a cousin who is four years younger but has lived with him since he was little. They never really got along till later on in the story. Once Pete lost Maybelle, he also lost his mind and crushed the relationship between him and his cousin. This is another example of love and loss. Another example is the theme of imprisonment and escape. Pete’s younger cousin, Sucker, always listened to what he said. He was living life under Pete’s orders and as he grew older and saw Pete lose his mind, he escaped the imprisonment of Pete’s orders and started doing his own thing. Lastly is the theme of innocence. Sucker was a shy twelve year old but started to take over Pete’s room as the story ended.
b) In my opinion sucker is a real, living person because he has human characteristics like change in personality, emotion and personality. In the story “Sucker,” Richard is the younger cousin of Pete and he has been living with him since he was little. In the story his reactions are very realistic and his characteristics are very human like.
In the story, Sucker is a very shy boy and did almost anything that Pete said. Later on in the story Pete lost his mind because of his loss of love to a character named Maybelle and that’s when Sucker changed his attitude towards Pete. Personally I have gone through the same thing as Sucker. I had a friend and one time he just started yelling and fighting with me and after that I never really talked to him.
Another reason why Sucker, in my opinion, is real is because he has emotions like fear, sadness and happiness. An example of that is when Pete did lose his mind, Sucker felt scared and did not reply or move. This is a human quality because his reaction was the same as most peoples. Personally when I did something bad and got yelled at I would freeze up and get nervous.
In conclusion, Sucker is very human like with his reactions, emotions and personality.
Lesson 12: Structure in “The Ballad of the Sad Café”
a) In my opinion the literally technique used in this passage is foreshadowing. The reason why I think this is because in the passage it says “and then went on his way again.” This tells me something else may happen further on in the book.
b) The first detail that suggests the grotesque in this passage is the strangers crooked legs. The second one is his warped chest and the third one is his lavender shadows beneath his eyes.
c) 1) The narrative voice changes in the first sentence of paragraph two. It goes from a general tone in the first paragraph but gets said with short sentences in the second.
2) Specific to general
3) The second transition is the third sentence in the second paragraph because it goes from saying “him” to actually referring to the hunchback.
4) The hunchback
5) The hunchback seems like a curious, weird man. At the beginning of the excerpt he was asking very personal questions. He also seems very interactive because in the excerpt it says it is like he has been in the town for four years.
Lesson 13: McCullers’s Theory of the Lover and the Beloved In the novella “The Ballad of the Sad Café,” a new character, Lymon, is introduced. The story is set in a small town called Georgia, far away and isolated from the rest of the world. The town is very small and the biggest building in the town is owned by a lady named Miss Amelia who owns a store in this building and happens to be the richest in the town. Lymon is a grotesque character as he is described "the man was a hunchback. He was scarcely more than four feet tall. His crooked little legs seemed too