The past has a funny way of catching up with people. Sometimes, those individuals relish revisiting the olden days. For others, the past is something to be hidden away and never spoken of for fear of stirring up cruel memories and disturbing secrets. For the four members of the Tyrone family, the past is an escape, but also an inescapable prison. Each character in this play longs to return to a point in the past where they were happy, yet they are also haunted by their respective pasts. Some of the Westons of Osage County are also haunted by the events that transpired in the past. But unlike the Tyrones, the Westons do not welcome the past in their home at all. It forces itself into their lives and ruins what little happiness there is to be had. The Tyrones, on the other hand sedate themselves with those memories of happier times. The older generations in both families made decisions that haunted the future generations and condemned not only themselves, but also their progeny. Not one member of either family is able to escape from the events of the past unscathed.
The patriarchs and matriarchs of each family made decisions that set the tone of tragedy for the lives of their children. The events that occurred during this generation’s younger years were the precedents by which their offspring lived. Beverly Weston and James Tyrone both committed questionable acts in the past that affect the lives of everyone else in their families. All throughout Long Day’s Journey Tyrone is reproached for being cheap; his family believes that that stinginess is what led to Mary’s morphine addiction. This accusation plagues Tyrone and when he and his wife begin discussing it, he beseeches her, “Mary! For god’s sake, forget the past!” (O’Neill 90). ...
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...ho hold them. These previous events cause a rippling effect of dysfunction that touches each generation of these households. The decisions of the parents affect the lives of the children and the choices of their children in turn. As Mary Tyrone said, “The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future, too” (O’Neill 90). The quote is indicative of both families’ unfortunate relationship to the past. The past always catches up to them, no matter how far away they move or how many pills they take. The Tyrones successfully escape for a short time, but it is not forever. And the Westons physical separation leads to an emotional isolation that is showcased in Violet’s final, desperate scene as she calls out for her dead husband and departed daughter. For these haunted families, the past remains both friend and fiend, a relationship from which they can never truly escape.
With these two divergent personas that define the grandmother, I believe the ultimate success of this story relies greatly upon specific devices that O’Connor incorporates throughout the story; both irony and foreshadowing ultimately lead to a tale that results in an ironic twist of fate and also play heavily on the character development of the grandmother. The first sense of foreshadowing occurs when the grandmother states “[y]es and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, Caught you” (1042). A sense of gloom and an unavoidable meeting with the miscreant The Misfit seem all but inevitable. I am certain that O’Connor had true intent behind th...
This essay will contrast a good and evil concept between two different stories. There is an obvious distinction that stands out between the stories; however they are similar in one way. In A Worn Path (Eudora Welty) and A Good Man is Hard to Find (Flannery O’Conner) the one thing that sticks out, is the main character in both stories. The main character in both stories being the grandmother. Grandmothers are of course an important part of the family. In each story we have a grandmother of a different race, appearance, and attitude. In each story the grandmothers take different journeys, but there is one thing they both face being treated disrespected. We live in a world in which the grandmother resides with the family and helps to take care of the grandchildren. In the world today things are different and times are still hard if not harder. We live in a time when respect is no longer earned. Now days it seems as if respect is not as important as it was in earlier years and it is evident in these two stories.
Although this story is told in the third person, the reader’s eyes are strictly controlled by the meddling, ever-involved grandmother. She is never given a name; she is just a generic grandmother; she could belong to anyone. O’Connor portrays her as simply annoying, a thorn in her son’s side. As the little girl June Star rudely puts it, “She has to go everywhere we go. She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day” (117-118). As June Star demonstrates, the family treats the grandmother with great reproach. Even as she is driving them all crazy with her constant comments and old-fashioned attitude, the reader is made to feel sorry for her. It is this constant stream of confliction that keeps the story boiling, and eventually overflows into the shocking conclusion. Of course the grandmother meant no harm, but who can help but to blame her? O’Connor puts her readers into a fit of rage as “the horrible thought” comes to the grandmother, “that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (125).
These two plays show dramatically the struggle for authoritative power over the characters lives, families, and societies pressures. The overall tragedy that befalls them as they are swept up in these conflicts distinctly portrays the thematic plot of their common misconception for power and control over their lives.
not only a family but a society. In a play riddled with greed, manipulation and dishonesty,
After five years of being raised and living with their grandmother whom they truly loved, the girls had a rude awakening. Their grandmother, Sylvia had passed away. “When after almost five years, my grandmother one winter morning eschewed awakening, Lily and Nona were fetched from Spokane and took up housekeeping in Fingerbone, just as my grandmother had wished” (Robinson 29). This was the final attempt that their grandmother had made in order for the girls to have a normal and traditional life. This is a solid example of how the sister’s lives are shaped by their family and their surroundings. Lucille’s ultimate concern in life is to conform to society and live a traditional life. She wishes to have a normal family and is sorrowful for all of the losses that she has experienced such as her mother’s and grandmother’s deaths. On the other hand, Ruthie, after spending more time with her future guardian, Aunt Sylvie, becomes quite the transient like her.
The Bragg family grew up with virtually nothing. The father left the family a number of times, offering no financial assistance and stealing whatever he could before he left. When he was there, he was usually drunk and physically abusive to the mother. He rarely went after the children, but when he did the mother was always there to offer protection. Mr. Bragg's mother's life consisted of working herself to exhaustion and using whatever money she had on the children.
In conclusion, the tenuous relationship Sethe shared with her mother led to Sethe’s inability to provide for her children. Consequentially, the murder of Beloved built an emotional barrier that added to the preexisting issue of concerning her stolen milk left Denver with too little milk and the primitive drive to live that at first seemed foiled by her mother’s overbearing past. Yet, against all odds Denver was able to break her family’s legacy of being engulfed in the past and began taking steps for a better future.
From the beginning, Beloved focuses on the import of memory and history. Sethe struggles daily with the haunting legacy of slavery, in the form of her threatening memories and also in the form of her daughter’s aggressive ghost. For Sethe, the present is mostly a struggle to beat back the past, because the memories of her daughter’s death and the experiences at Sweet Home are too painful for her to recall consciously. But Sethe’s repression is problematic, because the absence of history and memory inhibits the construction of a stable identity. Even Sethe’s hard-won freedom is threatened by her inability to confront her prior life. Paul D’s arrival gives Sethe the opportunity and the impetus to finally come to terms with her painful life history.
Furthermore, Mary’s father was abusive in the family home to both Mary and her mother. A lifelong criminal, who was known to commit violent armed robberies, was not a good influence for Mary. Billy was often out of work, depending on earnings form Betty to sustain the house. It must be noted that there is some question if Billy is actually Mary’s father, given Betty’s profession; chances are great that Billy was just another victimizer in Mary’s lif...
...e on her part. Throughout the story, the Mother is portrayed as the dominant figure, which resembled the amount of say that the father and children had on matters. Together, the Father, James, and David strived to maintain equality by helping with the chickens and taking care of Scott; however, despite the effort that they had put in, the Mother refused to be persuaded that Scott was of any value and therefore she felt that selling him would be most beneficial. The Mother’s persona is unsympathetic as she lacks respect and a heart towards her family members. Since the Mother never showed equality, her character had unraveled into the creation of a negative atmosphere in which her family is now cemented in. For the Father, David and James, it is only now the memories of Scott that will hold their bond together.
After a decade of not seeing his mother and brother, Howard returns to his hometown in Mississippi. It is evident how thrilled he is. As the train approaches town, he begins “to feel curious little movements of the heart, like a lover as he nears his sweetheart” (par. 3). He expects this visit to be a marvelous and welcoming homecoming. His career and travel have kept his schedule extremely full, causing him to previously postpone this trip to visit his family. Although he does not immediately recognize his behavior in the past ten years as neglectful, there are many factors that make him aware of it. For instance, Mrs. McLane, Howard’s mother, has aged tremendously since he last saw her. She has “grown unable to write” (par. 72). Her declining health condition is an indicator of Howard’s inattentiveness to his family; he has not been present to see her become ill. His neglect strikes him harder when he sees “a gray –haired woman” that showed “sorrow, resignation, and a sort of dumb despair in her attitude” (par. 91). Clearly, she is growing old, and Howard feels guilty for not attending her needs for such a long time period: “his throat [aches] with remorse and pity” (par. 439). He has been too occupied with his “excited and pleasurable life” that he has “neglected her” (par. 92). Another indication of Howard’s neglect is the fact that his family no longer owns the farm and house where he grew up. They now reside in a poorly conditioned home:
Each character in O’Connor’s short story brings to surface the bitter way society functions today. Take for instance the grandmother, shows how manipulative society can be when things do not go their way through out the story the grandmother manipulates her way to bring the trip to a halt and in to trouble and even when she knows she is lost she reaches out and surprises everyone by trying to side with the convict “Why your one of my babies. Your one of my own children!” (O'Connor 238-248).This quote is. A direct representation of how manipulative the grandmother can be in the story, and in many ways how society is today. Society will manipulate anything from the news to information to better fit a cause and the excuse given is that it is done to better civilization.
Having inherited the myth of ugliness and unworthiness, the characters throughout the story, with the exception of the MacTeer family, will not only allow this to happen, but will instill this in their children to be passed on to the next generation. Beauty precedes love, the grownups seem to say, and only a few possess beauty, so they remain unloved and unworthy. Throughout the novel, the convictions of sons and daughters are the same as their fathers and mothers. Their failures and accomplishments are transferred to their children and to future generations.
Beloved, Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize winning novel, is a masterfully written book in which the characters must deal with a past that perpetually haunts them. This haunting, in the form of a twenty year old ghost named Beloved, not only stalks them in the spirit, but also in the flesh. Beloved, both in story and in character hides the truth in simple ways and convinces those involved that the past never leaves, it only becomes part of who they are. This contortion of truth does not allow any character to escape. Each one hides and runs from the brutality of slavery, yet cannot escape it's heritage. Set in the post-Civil War era of the rural Ohio back roads, each protagonist faces the fact that through Beloved's return they must deal with the ties of the past and the prosperity of the future. And after dealing with those memories that don't let them go, they can move on with their lives. Beloved, the ghostly character, drives this story of Sethe, Denver, and Paul D. to an exploding end of triumph and unity.