In her book, Family Ethics: Practices for Christians, Julie Hanlon Rubio is focusing on the social aspect of the family. She aims to show how the secular world can invade and distract the family from living out their faith. The author tries to illuminate the emphasis given to the social role of the family in Catholic teaching even before Vatican II. Using numerous quotes from other authors on the role of the family including Saint Pope John Paul II she emphasizes the family as a crucial group in society. There are aspects that fall short such as an over emphasizing of the middle class, leaving out the challenges of the lower class and upper class families which can be different. The author positively focuses on the ordinary dilemmas in the …show more content…
Focusing on the fictional writings of Flannery O’Connor there is an emphasis on going beyond the romanticism of a perfect marriage. Seeing beyond the façade and embracing the ordinary, frailty and brokenness of our daily lives as our need for God and others. The author then turns her attention to five practices that can assist in carrying out the task of being a Christian in this postmodern world: having sex, eating, tithing, serving and praying. “In the context of this book I consider sex as fundamental to the practices of relationship and compassion, eating as a dimension of practicing relationship and justice, tithing in relation to the practice of simplicity, serving as a way of practicing compassion, and praying as a form centering. All five can be seen as practices of resistance embedded in ordinary life marked by Christian commitments to God and neighbor” (98). The author maintains faithful sexual practice in a marriage fosters ethical goods such as: vulnerability, self-sacrifice, self-love, and bodily belonging with one’s spouse. The common and ordinary practice of eating a meal as a family around the dinner table is noted as a necessary practice. Eating meals together is associated not only with strong families but with strong communities, concretized in Catholic teaching by the Eucharist. “The majority of American …show more content…
When they eat together at a table where all are welcome, they extend their communion to their children and others around them. When they buy sustainably grown food, they help to slow environmental destruction. When they give a portion of their income away, they limit consumerism and create new opportunities for those in poverty. When they give a portion of their time to service, they have the chance to change the loves of others and be changed in their own hearts. When they claim time for prayer, they open themselves to God and one another. Small decisions matter” (243).
The recommendations laid out are free to interpretation to fit the reader’s family dynamic. That flexibility gives the family the ability to do what works for them when it comes to moral discernment of small decisions. One of the weaknesses I see in the book is the focus on the middle class two-income family. In doing background research on the author her connection to social justices and service were shaped by her parents, her father was a civil rights lawyer. Their family mealtime discussions revolved around her father’s civil rights work. When talking
Asals, Frederick. Flannery O'Connor : The Imagination of Extremity. University of Georgia Press; Reissue edition. Athens, Georgia, 2007.
Chapter 10 of Teresa Ciabattari book Sociology of families talks about the social policy and the future of families. The chapter starts by giving the readers a brief review of what we have learned so far in chapters 1-9. The chapter discusses the different approaches to what a family is and the changes of what the meaning of family is in the united states. The propose of the chapter is to get a better understanding of the book’s ideas yet to also see what the types of impacts they’ll have in our future society. The chapter is spilt into many categories such as Defining family, family change, family continuity, family diversity, inequality and social policy; housing policy and family inequality, state welfare policy and family, and so forth.
Richard Rodriguez was an established author of the 1980’s and 90’s. In his article titled Family Values (1992) he questioned the integrity and overall opinion of the American family system. Family Values uses the contexts of social and political ideologies to achieve its goals. His overall message with this argument is the competing types of family values and their application in real world settings. In this expository article, Rodriguez relies on his ability to weave pathos and ethos into a well-written argument that captivates his audience and encourages them to question the average American family system.
Scott, Nathan A., Jr. "Flannery O'Connor's Testimony." The Added Dimension: The Art and Mind of Flannery O'Connor. Ed. Melvin J. Friedman and Lewis A. Lawson. New York: Fordham UP, 1966. 138-56.
Although Flannery O’Connor didn’t even live to see her 40th birthday, her fiction endures to this day. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” O’Connor effectively deals with the two huge themes (topics) of religion and racism. These two themes are crucial to understanding much of O’Connor’s great works and are relevant to all readers of O’Connor throughout all ages.
A murdering messiah. A Bible-selling prosthesis thief. A corpse in full Confederate regalia waiting in line a Coca-Cola machine. One of the most haunting qualities about Flannery O'Connor's fiction is the often shocking but always memorable images adding intensity to her stories. Her violent comedy is a fusion of opposite realities--an explosive meeting between contradictory forces. She creates characters from the southern grandmothers, mothers, preachers, neighbors, and assorted "good country people" populating her world, using their traits, words and behaviors to give her fictional world life. And we are as familiar with them as she is. We know them; they could be people from our region, our town, our family. Just regular folks. But she pushes them beyond normal boundaries, beyond any reality we or they could imagine by introducing them to their opposite. The person on the other end of reality. For example, the grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" appears to be the stereotypical grandmother busily involved in her fami...
The feminist element is an overarching theme in all of Flannery O’Connor’s works; it is imperative to note however that O’Connor did not want to be easily identified as a feminist, she wanted her characters not to deny their femininity but to “exploit it” sometimes to the point of a parody (Smith 35); she wanted her readers to “give credit” to her characters for “employing a clever strategy in attempting to survive in a man’s world” (Smith 35). With this, O’Connor provokes her readers to not only have compassion for ...
All of O’Connor’s writings are done in a Southern scene with a Christian theme, but they end in tragedy. As Di Renzo stated “her procession of unsavory characters “conjures up, in her own words, “an image of Gothic monstrosities”… (2). Flannery O’Connor was highly criticized for her work as a writer, because of her style of writing, and her use of God. It was stated that “…whatever the stories may have meant to her, they often send a quite different message to the reader”… (Bandy). But the stories of O’Connor take a look at the way people depict themselves on the outside, but inside they are
1) O’Connor, Flannery, A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Women Writers: Text & Contexts Series). Rutgers University Press, 1993.
Lareau’s main argument in the text is that when children grow up in certain environments, parents are more likely to use specific methods of child rearing that may be different from other families in different social classes. In the text, Lareau describes how she went into the home of the McAllisters and the Williams, two black families leading completely different lives. Ms. McAllister lives in a low income apartment complex where she takes care of her two children as well as other nieces and nephews. Ms. McAllister never married the father of her two children and she relies on public assistance for income. She considers herself to be a woman highly capable of caring for all the children yet she still struggles to deal with the stress of everyday financial issues. The Williams on the other hand live in a wealthier neighborhood and only have one child. Mr. W...
Whitt, Margaret. Understanding Flannery O’Connor. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995. 47-48, 78. Print.
...sque, and in Flannery O’Connor’s artistic makeup there is not the slightest trace of sentimentally” (qtd. in Bloom 19). Flannery O’Connor’s style of writing challenges the reader to examine her work and grasp the meaning of her usage of symbols and imagery. Edward Kessler wrote about Flannery O’Connor’s writing style stating that “O’Connor’s writing does not represent the physical world but serves as her means of apprehending and understanding a power activating that world” (55). In order to fully understand her work one must research O’Connor and her background to be able to recognize her allegories throughout her stories. Her usage of religious symbols can best be studied by looking into her religious Catholic upbringing. Formalist criticism exists in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” through Flannery O’Connor’s use of plot, characterization, setting, and symbolism.
Many years ago, families had moral values that served a purpose in their lives. Mothers stayed at home and care for the children while dads went to work and provided for the family. In the home mothers would make the children to do their chores and homework before they could go outside and play. Back then, there were no computers or video games to play with so kids had to entertain themselves. By the end of the week, the family would go to church on Sunday. These were simple family values that build foundations for families back in the day. People were committed in doing the right thing. Even though most families could not afford fancy cars or nice clothes, they continued to make the best of everything. The most important value learned back then was respect and self-respect. Parents taught their children to respect them and other adults and respect themselves.
Strong marriages and families are integral parts of society that aid in sustaining a congruous atmosphere whereby the blessings and favor of God can flow freely. According to The Anscombe Society (n.d.), “The intact, healthy family offers the best environment for raising children, providing them with the love, support, and education necessary for success in adult life” (para. 2). Because of this influence, we cannot diminish the reality that both the family unit and marriages must be consistently evaluated and carefully maintained. When ruminating over my own personal experiences as a child growing up in my own elementary family, I’ve ratiocinated that the impact of either a healthy environment or a deleterious one is highly climacteric in
In a research article by Breitmaier (2010) an empirical study on Sexuality and Religiousness was done to investigate importance of sexual intimacy between Christian married couple. One hundred and ninety couples were given a survey about sexual attitudes and behavior to complete before the sexuality seminar and eight weeks later fifty couples retook the survey after the sexual seminar (Breitmaier, 2010). The participating couples in this study included couples with martial issues as a result to sexual dysfunction, low sexual satisfaction and couples who wanted more marital enrichment (Breitmaier, 2010). Breitma...