Gerardo Palafox
077
Paper #5
The central idea of “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O'Connor deals with the struggle to change a person in a positive way through religion. A person can be easily changed if grace, properly experienced, changes one's personal qualities (O'Connor qtd. in Hendricks). Attempting to change a person through religion becomes difficult when that individual demands to witness a miracle in order to believe: “if the Misfit had been able to see the miracle of Lazarus for himself, he would have believed that Jesus was the son of God, and he would have been able to live a conventional Christian life” (Hendricks).
The grandmother is the central character. She is round and static. She is static because her basic unchanging trait is that “the grandmother is a figure of grace and dignity.” The grandmother is polite to strangers and sympathetic to the poor” (Hendricks). An example of the grandmother's actions that show that she is trying to convince the Misfit to live a conventional life is when she says, “Think how wonderful it would be to settle down and live a comfortable life and not having to think about somebody chasing you all the time” (Hendricks).
Flannery O'Connor uses all three methods of indirect characterization for the grandmother. Those methods include, actions, thoughts, and words. An example of the grandmother's actions that reveal that she didn't obey Bailey's request was when she brought the cat along with them (O'Connor 964). An example of the grandmother's thoughts is when she kept silent due to her embarrassment for giving Bailey the wrong directions, “...and just as she said it, a horrible thought came to her. The thought was so embarrassing that she turned red in the face and he...
... middle of paper ...
...board table next to the nickelodeon...” (O'Connor 967), a “Jukebox” (Pickering fn.4, 967) which were popular in the nineteen fifties. Another example that lets the reader the know that the story takes place during the nineteen fifties is when the family sees a black child without any jeans on, and the grandmother says, “Little niggers in the country don't have things like we do” (O'Connor 965). The setting relates to the central idea because the story takes place in a time where society rejected religious and social value changes due to the lack of understanding and the unknown outcome of the changes.
In conclusion , Flannery O'Connor's story focuses on the internal conflict between spirit and matter (Hendricks): “The world has become polarized between spirit and matter, or grace and nature...human values have become polarized as well” (O'Connor qtd. in Hendricks).
The grandmother is very conscious of how to manipulate people in order to obtain what she wants. She executes her personal ideas and plans in well thought-out processes that are not obvious to her family until she pushes and pushes. the conclusion will include the end of the story that i stated at the beginning and sum up what I overall thought of the story and the parts I analyzed. The hero is typically a strong, good-natured person by Hollywood standards, but some authors take the freedom to change this definition. Authors like Flannery O'Connor in her short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” redefine the hero with the character, Grandma.
A Good Man is Hard to Find, there are two main characters whose faith should be analyzed: “the grandmother” and “the Misfit”. We can use Paul Tilloch’s six components to analyze their faith. The grandmother seems to have a great understanding of what faith is in five of the The Misfit is not “ultimately concerned” about his faith. The Misfit was confused as to why he was sent to prison and why he was punished in the ways that he was.
The Grandmother is the catalyst for all things. She also is a character who sees herself as a good person but is actually
There are three phases of thought for the Grandmother. During the first phase, which is in the beginning, she is completely focused on herself in relation to how others think of her. The Second Phase occurs when she is speaking to The Misfit. In the story, The Misfit represents a quasi-final judgment. He does this by acting like a mirror. He lets whatever The Grandmother says bounce right off him. He never really agrees with her or disagrees, and in the end he is the one who kills her. His second to last line, "She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life," (O'Conner 152). might be the way O'Conner felt about most of us alive, or how she felt that God must feel about us.
O’Connor emphasized human problem and use spiritual words to connect the grandmother character with everyone. This family uses a traditional vacation that families go on every year to show daily problem, attitudes and emotion while on a road trip. O’Connor use language in the South to tell the story. I think the grandmother use various types of language to express her thoughts and feeling. The author push the audiences to feel the amount of pride the grandmother have when it comes to identifying what she wants. O’Connor shows how dominant the grandmother is when she does an excellent job in persuading the family to go where she wants to go. This is a perfect example of the amount of manipulate the grandmother use throughout the story.
Both 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale are dystopian novels, however, these books are a lot more complex than mere portrayals of dystopia, it can be argued that they are explorations of dystopia rather than mere portrayals. In order to explore dystopia, many themes must be considered, such as; feminism, love and repression. Nonetheless, it is apparent that human characteristics are the driving point of the two novels, predominantly, the depiction of human resilience. In an imperfect world, it is important to have certain qualities which, if plentiful, it can mean success, whereas if it lacks, it can mean failure, this characteristic is resilience. The protagonists in each novel, Winston in 1984 and Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale face situations which leave them both in disarray, and both even consider suicide. The authors tentatively highlight human resilience, its limits and most importantly its strengths into the two novels.
In the beginning of the story the negative characteristics of the grandmother are revealed. She is portrayed as being a very egocentric person. The grandmother is very persistent about getting her way. She appears to be very insensitive of the feelings of the other family members. She consistently tries to persuade the family to go to Tennessee rather than to Florida. Also, she rebelliously took the cat with her on the trip when she knew the others would object. As a result of her selfishness the family had to make a detour to stop and see the house that she insisted upon visiting.
In America, it is becoming more difficult to achieve the American Dream. The American Dream is based on the idea that people can move higher up on the social scale, as long as they work hard work to accomplish their goal. The American Dream is also based on the belief that the social class you’re born into, is not the social class you have to stay in. In other words, everyone can move up in their lifetime if they work hard. However this is not true today, and people are not moving positively up the social class ladder. It has become a chain reaction of people with a college education vs. people without a college education. People with a college degree, or who have parents that have received a college degree, are significantly more likely to be in the upper class in America today, giving them an unfair advantage.
Hesiod’s Theogony and the Babylonian Enuma Elish are both myths that begin as creation myths, explaining how the universe and, later on, humans came to be. These types of myths exist in every culture and, while the account of creation in Hesiod’s Theogony and the Enuma Elish share many similarities, the two myths differ in many ways as well. Both myths begin creation from where the universe is a formless state, from which the primordial gods emerge. The idea of the earth and sky beginning as one and then being separated is also expressed in both myths.
"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor is a short story that depicts a family's vacation to Florida that turned into an abysmal tragedy when they met with the Misfit, a convict who escaped from prison. This story is meant to be interpreted as a parable, whereby O'Connor made skilful use of symbolism to bring about messages such as the class-consciousness and the lack of spiritual faith that exist amongst human.
In Stephen C. Brandy’s essay, “One of My Babies,” he quoted, “the grandmother’s petty acts of deception are, it seems at first glance merely that- petty acts. Profoundly dishonest, she stops at nothing ...
During the Great Depression, while the competitors were cutting costs and reusing outdated designs, Kress was expanding and building more elaborate stores than their previous ones. The architecture was referred to as an “emporium” evoking an elegant atmosphere more suited to a fine cloth or furniture store in New York rather than the five & dime stores dotting small town America. Many wonder what the driving force was behind these design decisions, especially during a national time of economic recession. Perhaps simply to outpace the competition, but perhaps more importantly Samuel Kress was an avid art collector and a proponent of public art enhancing a community. In this way the Kress legacy of the brand became more than a retail business, it became a symbol of small town civic pride.
In Flannery O 'Connor 's short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, the theme of good vs. evil unravels throughout the series of tragic events. The Grandmother’s epiphany introduces the idea of morality and the validity is left to the interpretation of the reader. By questioning the characteristics of right and wrong, morality and religion become subjective to personal reality and the idea of what makes individuals character good or bad becomes less defined.
Flannery O’Connor’s religious background influenced almost all her stories. She received criticism for her harsh representation of religion. Richard Giannone describes “A Good Man is Hard to Find” as “God’s transforming love by confronting the reader with a condition of true goodness amid the stark brutality of serial murder” (46). In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor frequently references religious symbols to describe the characters and their actions. Toward the end of the play the grandmother frantically tries to persuade The Misfit to pray and that Jesus would help him. The Misfit replied stating, “Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead, and he shouldn’t have done it. He thown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do ...