The lit team expert group I’m in is trying to focus on the IB question, “"Good's good and bad's bad." In the light of this statement, examine the ways in which writers explore moral issues, with close reference to two or three works you have studied.” We became interested in examining what defines characters as good or bad. Why they become sympathetic. Who the author is trying portray as the protagonist or antagonist. We figured the best way to format this is in the form of a podcast where each author is being presented to support an answer to the question: What defines the “good guy” and the “bad guy”? What defines the villain, the vigalantee, the hero, etc.? With Joyce, we’re using An Encounter with the old man because the narrator character mentions how he doesn’t really care for his friend and the old man is creepy and says horrible things and we want to examine that for this question. Another good Joyce story for this is Little Cloud because with that you can argue how both Gallaher and Chandler are bad people, but Chandler is our “protagonist.” Neither are particularly good people but somehow Chandler ends up being a more sympathetic or empathetic character. Examining his good and bad qualities was very interesting and a large topic of discussion for that story individually so it really fits perfectly with this question. There's also Eveline who's struggle in the story is dealing with her decision to stay or go. If she stays she is doing right by her mother and her family who needs her to take care of them because she has a bad cruel father. If she goes she is doing the wrong thing to her family and it made her feel guilty and bad. But was she a bad person? Or a good person in a troubling situation? It's a topic that I think we'll be able to find a lot to say about.
