Similarities Between Good Country People And Everyday Use

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When looking into works of literature, some stories seem to be similar to others. They can have a similar setting, point of view, theme, or sense of language and style. However, all of these points could be very different as well and could cover different theme or style. Flannery O’Conner’s “Good Country People” and Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” have some contrasting elements, such as their points of view and use of symbolism, but their similarities in the underlying theme, language, and the setting of these stories reveal how these two stories are impacted by education on both the individual and their family. The stories “Good Country People” and “Everyday Use” have several similarities between them. One would be the theme that is embedded …show more content…

In this story, it is as if the individual is a part of the conversation, but not directly spoken to. It is clear in the language used too that it is country slang and in a way that one is not educated pronounce words clearly. The author writes, “His face had brightened. “I didn’t inraduce myself,” he said. “I’m Manley Pointer from out in the country around Willohobie, not even from a place, just from near a place” (193). The language used in this story can make an evident line between the educated and ones who have not had a chance to receive a good …show more content…

The statement, “She had telephoned the man whose name they had given as a reference and he had told her that Mr. Freeman was a good farmer but that his wife was the noisiest woman ever to walk the earth” suggests, when the term farmer is used, that this story takes place in a farm town. Also the way Mom describes herself can lead the reader to think that she works on a farm herself. She says, “I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man” (744). From the way she describes her working hands to explaining how she slaughtered a cow, the reader understands that she has a farm that they live on and is an extremely hard worker. The setting in these stories are used in a way that impact the theme tremendously because the individuals who go to college are both from small rural communities where opportunities like this do not happen very often especially during this time, which is probably around the mid to late 1950s and 1960s. While, in the story “Good Country People”, a comment is made about the make of a car when the author notes that, “She said he owned a ’55 Mercury but that Glynese said she would rather marry a man with only a ’36 Plymouth who would be married by a preacher” (195). This statement can indicate that the time frame that ”Good Country People” happens in is around 1955 because the way it is talked about the older

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