“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, was published in 1955. The genre of the story is southern gothic. Gothic tales are usually creepy and take place in a small or enclosed place, like the barn loft where most of the action in the story takes place (Shmoop Editorial Team). Another key element that makes this story gothic is the missing leg and missing glass eye. The reason the story is southern gothic and not just gothic is because the setting takes place in the south. Half of the setting takes place in the kitchen making it clear that the story is from Hulga and Mrs. Hopewell’s point of view. The climatic action takes place in the barn loft emphasizing Hulga’s vulnerability. “Good Country People” describes identity, society and class, …show more content…
He states “I want to devote my life to Chrustian service. ‘ I got this heart condition. I may not live long’” (O’Connor 388). Pointer states this because he is trying to make a connection with Hulga. The doctors told Mrs. Hopewell that Hulga might not make it to see 45 because of her weak heart (O’Connor 386). Pointer lied about having a heart problem so that Mrs. Hopewell would have sympathy and ask him to stay for dinner, which worked (Shmoop Editorial Team). Manley knows how to control a situation and get what he wants. First, he charms Mrs. Hopewell by stating that her friends say she is a “good woman” (O’Connor 387) than states “people like you don’t like to fool with country people like me!” (O’Connor 388) making Mrs. Hopewell insist that he stay for dinner. Second, he charms Hulga by complimenting her repetitively with statements such as “‘I see you have a wooden leg…I think you’re brave. I think you’re real sweet’” and “‘I like girls that wear glasses…I’m not like these people that a serious thought don’t ever enter their heads. It’s because I may die’” whereas than she states, “‘I may die too’” (O’Connor 392). He uses this as a pick up line to get Hulga interested in him but also get her to trust him. Afterwards, he makes the comment “‘don’t you think some people was meant to meet on account of what all they got in common and all?’” (O’Connor 392). These comments and remarks are what get Pointer to get Hulga to meet him on Saturday and go for a walk in the
There are many widely recognized characteristics that are apart of Southern literature that are present in Flannery O’Connor’s novel Wise Blood. Among the most familiar characteristics of Southern literature is a writing style that is based upon imagery. Another common characteristic which can be drawn from Southern literature is the struggle to understand the difference between what is real human experience as opposed to what is believed to be real, as well as the human/God relationship. Flannery O’Connor’s use of consistent imagery reinforces one of the major themes of Wise Blood – that man seems to only scratch the surface of things, and not see deeper into them.
When I think of the south, I think of southern hospitality. I picture people always talking to each other, whether it?s just small talk or gossip, which is the case in The Petrified Man. The dialogue itself appears to be pretty accurate (from what I can imagine anyway, since I?ve never been down south). The south definitely has a certain way of talking and Eudora Welty does a great job showing us, not just telling us, this dialect. From the very first sentence of the story, you know where you are, and the type of people involved in the story. ?Reach in my purse and git me a cigarette without no powder in it if you kin, Mrs. Fletcher, honey ? I don?t like no perfumed cigarettes.?
"Good Country People", by Flannery O’Connor, presents us with a look into the monotonous lives of three women living together on a rural farm. All three women are set in their old-fashioned ways, having experienced very little of life, out on the farm. A bible salesman named Manley Pointer, appearing like nothing more than simple, "good country people"(1), pays them a visit one day. It turns out that this simple countryboy is actually a brilliant con artist who scams the pretentious daughter, Hulga (also known as Joy) into removing her wooden leg, which he proceeds to steal. A great change in Hulga is triggered by her experience with Manley Pointer. Although it was a cruel scam, the bible salesman helps her to see the truth about her education and human nature. Hulga realizes that in addition to book smarts, people skills are also crucial in navigating the real world.
Do you know what American Individualism means? Are you an individualist? Discussing these issues and topics are very important because individualism or collectivism is a lifestyle and depends directly how you look at it. American Individualism is a key term used today in our society. Today, people are turning individualism into collectivism, yet trying to hold on to both at the same time. Depending on who you are and what you believe, you will have your own idea on the positives and negatives of individualism, and where you stand. Despite the fact of the good and bad in American Individualism, without the freedom of standing alone, we are nothing.
Because of Winn Dixie written by Kate DiCamillo, was first published in 2000. This story doesn't say when it occurs. The story is told in first person observer as told by India Opal Buloni. This is a wonderful book that has a good theme
When analyzing a literary work, I often consider the setting of the story to be a vivid picture painted for the reader to understand the story better. However, I have learned recently that the setting not only portrays the environment and surroundings, but it also plays a key role in the development of the plot as well as the characters. Therefore, the setting of a certain story has much more power than most people think. It creates a certain environment, helps characters change, helps them come to realizations, it can even control the way they behave. As I was analyzing the short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”, I couldn 't help but notice that the setting had a direct influence on not only the main character of the
...201). In “Crimes of the Heart” specifically, one of the most prominent symbols is food (Whited 3). According to the author Lor Thompson cited in Whited’s piece, hunger, or the desire to consume food, in the play is symbolic of the emptiness that the individual sisters that they try to fill by eating food, but is ineffective, because the emptiness is one of the “heart” and cannot be remedied by filling the stomach (Whited 3). Whited also points out that the act of eating signifies a sense of familial bonding as well, because whenever they are eating, the MaGrath sisters are together, and this often follows major points of realization or events in their life, including the banana splits after the tragedy of their mother’s death and the birthday cake they share as they smile and laugh after coming to their own individual realizations at the end of the play (Whited 3).
The term “Gothic” was coined by Italian Renaissance writers who blamed what they considered to be the non-classical ugliness of the art and architecture of the time, to the northern tribes of Germanic barbarians known as Goths. Baron Wolfgang van Schreck’s ancestors had invaded the Roman Empire and destroyed what was considered to be the “true” art of the time; walls that were much too high and thick, arches that were too steeply pointed. The Gothic school of architecture, which included flying buttresses, rib vaulting, pointed arches and the presence of gargoyles on the inside and outside of the building. At the end of the 18th century the term Gothic switched meanings, from “medieval” to “macabre”, through the intervention of a man named Horace Walpole (1717-1797). He was the son of the famous politician Sir Robert Walpole, Horace was a well-known writer and dilettante who gradually transformed his villa, Strawberry Hill, into the most famous Gothic building of age. With this the now cliché image of a Gothic castle is now an accurate representation of the non-classical ugliness of the time period itself.
“In Country” by Bobbie Ann Mason is a story of a teenage girl, named Sam, who had lost her father in Vietnam before she was born, struggles with finding her identity. Sam takes care of her uncle, as her mother leaves to start a new life in Lexington, a few hours away from Hopewell, Kentucky. Sam believes her mother is wrong on leaving Emmett, a mentally ill veteran to fend for himself. Sam lets her mother leave and stays behind to look after him. The two of them have a unique bond. Though the pair together is happy, Emmett seems discontent with his life. He avoids social interactions, and just seems a bit out of his mind so to speak. It's as if he is waiting for something to jar him from this long rut he has been in since the war, maybe even before it. He believes himself and everything around him to be a lost cause. In regards to his house he
William Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily” is an example of gothic literature. Faulkner shows sadness for the love that is not returned and a drive that Emily uses to get what she wishes for. He has a gloomy and mysterious tone. One of the themes of the story is that people should let go of their past, move on with the present so that they can focus on welcoming their future. Emily was the evidence of a person who always lived in the shadow of her past, because she was afraid of changing for the future. She would not let go of the past throughout all her life, keeping everything she loved in the past with her.
Southern Gothic represents a grotesque and dark era that occurred in the American South after the Civil war. Many authors explored the many elements of this genre and its used to give a mysterious and gloomy aura to short stories. This genre creates suspense and mystery, but also reflects on social issues that were relevant in the early 19th century. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor and A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner are both examples of how dynamic southern gothic is. O’Connor and Faulkner capture some of the many aspects of this genre by elaborating about the hardships of love, revealing irony within the stories, and by depicting how society is so quick to judge others.
The story “Good Country People”, by Flannery O’Conner is a work that uses characterization in a new and interesting way to help shape and present the characters of this story. One of the main characters is Hulga Hopewell, also known as Joy Hopewell. This characters name plays a very ironic role in the story. Through the use of such a peculiar name O’Conner helps to develop and build the characteristics of Hulga. In the story “Good Country People” the use of the name Hulga (Joy) Hopewell helps to further build upon the characterization of Hulga and give the reader a deeper understanding of the character.
In The Rise of the Novel, Ian Watt underlines the “changed nature” of eighteenth-century mainstream literary production that witnesses a textual revolution since the inception of the gothic genre, which gains its popularity with the publication of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) (qtd. in Hock-soon Ng 1). Contrary to the realistic narratives of Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson, which mark the outset of the century, gothic writers tantalize their works with fantastic events, breaking with the Enlightenment ideological discourse that values rationality (Botting 3). Yet, the gothic genre has been maligned as a ‘marginalized’ literary form in relation to nineteenth-century realistic literature. Juliann Fleenor, in The Female Gothic, further elucidates this: “The Gothic has generally had a negative critical reception. From the first it has been seen as outside the mainstream of literature […]. [C]ompared to the realistic novel, the critics maintaining that the latter is superior because it is more real” (qtd. in Anna Haningerová 14). In fact, its peripherized position seems “congenial” to that of women in the nineteenth-century patriarchal society (14). Accordingly, women novelists take up this genre that becomes an established mode in their literary texts since the eighteenth-century. Indeed, it is feminized with the literary works of Ann Radcliffe and consolidated by her female successors that participate in ‘the rise of the female gothic novel’ and the inauguration of an autonomous ‘female gothic tradition.’
American writers have expressed their political and social views through their writing by attempting to establish a voice separate from Britain’s. Their fear of individual and national failure and their thirst for power consumes them and is evident in their writing. Washington Irving and Herman Melville involve the occupation of lawyers and Justices to bring in a patriotic element to influence residents of the young country as a way to share their concerns and inspire ambition. Their usage of metaphors and metonymy subtly convey a message of hope to white residents while, deflating the optimism of the soon to be freed slaves. This essay will prove that a critical reading of Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” and Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” utilizes representations and depictions of the gothic, the portrayal of black characters and their isolation, and blackness suggests the preoccupations of the American writer.
Southern Gothic is a specific genre of literature that ties together stereotypical elements of an old South with aspects of classical gothic work. There are six defining features usually present Southern Gothic story: an act of violence (physical or mental), imprisonment (literal or figurative), a strong sense of place (of typical Southern nature), an “innocent” character, a grotesque element, and an outsider. Alice Walker’s short story, “The Flowers”, clearly illustrates a strong sense of place, an innocent character, and a grotesque element.