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Literature and the human condition
Literature and its impact on society
Literature and its impact on society
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Lack of intelligence is a major issue in society. People sometimes don't know how to act in many situations and make the wrong decision that can affect them badly. In ¨Good Country People,¨ Hulga was a very smart woman but when dealing with people she lacked intelligence. In “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” Lucynell, who is a mother to a disabled blind girl named Lucynell, has lack of intelligence by forcing a stranger who calls himself Mr. Shiftlet, to marry her daughter, Lucynell and take her away to live with him. In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” the grandmother has lack of intelligence because when they ran into the misfit she didn't keep her mouth shut and blurted out that she knew who he was which got them into a very bad situation. …show more content…
They all got out of the car safely and no one was injured. They all stand there with puzzled faces waiting to see for a car to seek some help. They finally see a car in the distance and wave them down. The car reaches them and the men climb out of the car. The grandmother instantly felt like she knew who on of then men were. ¨When brought face to face with The Misfit, the grandmother knows that "[h]is face was as familiar to her as if she had known him all her life but she could not recall who he was" (314). She is trying to remember and create a bond between herself and another creature, allowing her to break out of her alienation, but her escape cannot happen quite yet¨(Keil). Finally, it clicked in her head and she shouted to his name in front of all of them which might have been one of the biggest mistakes shes ever made. ¨The grandmother shrieked. She scrambled to her feet and stood staring. "You're The Misfit!" she said. "I recognized you at once"(O'Connor 14)! The Misfit was a murderous guy who escaped and was on the loose. The grandmother imprudently shouted out that she knew who he was which caused the family to be at risk. The Misfit and the two other men had no choice but to kill all five of them. The grandmother caused this family to suffer due to her lack of
While reading Flannery O’Connor “A Good Man is Hard to Find” we read that a family of five are on a roadtrip to Florida where they go every year. We have The Grandmother who derailed her family from the actual road to see a house she thought was in those parts of town. When all of a sudden her helpers are the murders she is afraid of. The murder “The Misfit” kills off the rest of her family and leaves her to dwell in her sorrow that she will be next. The Grandmother tries to maneuver her way out of dying by sweet talking The Misfit into thinking she can love him as her own child and that he doesn’t have to kill anymore. When she tries to reach for him he moved back and shot her. The Grandmother didn’t want him to be violent anymore and thought
Why does The Misfit say after killing the grandmother “she would have been a good woman if it had been some body there to shoot her every minute of her life? Pg.150 The Misfit
After the accident that the grandmother had unintentionally caused by manipulating the image of a nonexistent house into her family’s head, they run into the Misfit. No one else in the family knew who he was or anything about him. They all thought someone had come to their rescue and was going to fix the car, but nothing gets over on the grandmother. Blatantly putting the whole family in danger she blurts out, “’You’re the Misfit!’…’Yes’m…but it would have been better for all of you, lady, if you hadn’t of reckernized me’” (192). At this point in time, she knows that she is going to die, trying to save herself and not caring about the rest of her family clearly as she has witnessed the Misfit’s goons kill off her whole family, she tries to manipulate him. She brings up that he is a “good man at heart” (192) and telling him if he “would pray…Jesus would help” (194). That was just simply her trying to plea for her life, but when she realized she was getting nowhere her “head cleared for an instant” (196), she knew this was an opportunity to try and manipulate the Misfit into letting her go, to make him feel like he didn’t have to be a killer anymore, to comfort him “she reached out and touched him on the shoulder” (196). The Misfit jolted away and shot her three times in the chest because he saw through her manipulative ways which if clear when he
To buttress this she pointed out that even at the grandmothers death misfit confirmed her to be a good woman in his statement “she would have been a good woman if she was to face death every minute of her life” (437). In contrast to her opinion Stephen Bandy a notable literally critics in one of his articles “One of my babies “: The Misfit and the Grandmother” he compared the characters of both and argued that despite the fact that O`Conner claimed the grandmother was merely filled with “prejudice” of her time, He described the grandmother as racist, busy body and utterly self-absorbed. When she saw that her child and grandchildren was been killed tried to manipulate Misfit to spare her own life whereas she was the one that lead them to their death.
In the text “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” by Flannery O’Connor, a common mood emerges from the somewhat humorous yet unfortunate work. A mood of grotesqueness among the characters and overall story as it presents itself, generally, making the audience feel quite uneasy and uncomfortable while reading it. Grotesque is a literary style, which comically and somewhat repulsively represents a distorted character or a series of twisted actions or thoughts that embody a character. The text creates a grotesque mood simply because the actions carried out by the characters resemble an extreme sense of despair and uneasiness, yet the way in which it is executed is somewhat funny and jocular to the reader, therefore creating an awkward overall mood
She knows that she is going to die. She reaches out to The Misfit and tells him “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!”. She doesn’t literally mean that he is her child but that they are both human, both children of God. The Misfit, being completely amoral and totally cut off from his own humanity, recoils from her touch.”The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest.” At this moment of her death, the Grandmother is more genuine than she’s ever been in her life. At the very end of her life she achieved a state of grace. The Misfit too, also undergoes a transformation. He realizes there’s “no real pleasure” in the way he’s been living his life. That’s not to say that The Misfit would stop killing. Only that, like the Grandmother, he realized a truth about
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.
...this is after she figures out whom he is. The Misfit has all of the Grandmother’s family escorted into the woods and killed. And as the story ends he takes the Grandmothers life when she touches him on the shoulder.
...d both of them do not quite understand what being saved actually means. In the end, “when she saw the man’s face twisted close to her own (367).” the grandmother realizes that she and The Misfit are both on the same level and she is no worse than the latter. Almost like taking a look into a mirror and pondering upon one’s own reflection. The story takes a quick pause, when the author writes the line, “His voice seemed to crack and the grandmother’s head cleared for an instance (367).” What were the thoughts that went through the grandmother’s head? What happened during the “instance” that changed the grandmother’s view on her beliefs? The sole purpose of the phrase drowns a reader with questions and uncertainty. The story makes a final closure with The Misfit’s remark on how his source of happiness by performing violent acts brings “no real pleasure in life.”
The Grandmother is an elderly woman who believes she possesses all of the qualities to be a lady. However, she passes judgement on to others thinking only highly of herself. Ironically, the Grandmother’s own actions are the ones that lead to her encounter with the Misfit and consequently leads to the death of her family and herself. Moments leading up to her death the Misfit helps lead the Grandmother into realizing that she is not better than anyone else. Her true moment of clarity is stating that the Misfit is one of her own children. Grandmother stating this shows she does not see herself as someone who is better than the Misfit. Moments after this realization the Misfit murders the Grandmother. After murdering the Grandmother the Misfit states, “‘She would of been a good woman,’ The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody to shoot her every minute of her life’” (O’Connor 430). The Grandmother lived a life where she only revealed her true kindness in moments of death. In Good Country People Hulga is a thirty-year-old overweight woman with a disability who still lives with her mother. Hulga has a doctorate in philosophy which leads her to have a much different outlook on life than those around her. She does not believe in religion and believes that she knows all there is to know about life and that she has society figured out.
The grandmother has never truly understood what being saved means. She is also ignorant to what salvation is. The Misfit is missing the ability to empathize and bind with other people. He does not hold respect for human life. In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, it says “She would of been a good woman, The Misfit said, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” (430). In “‘One of My Babies’: The misfit and the grandmother”, written by Stephen C. Bandy, it says “The Misfit has already directed the execution of the Grandmother’s entire family, and it must be obvious to all including reader and the Grandmother, that she is next to die” (108). These example justifies that The Misfit does not have any regard for human life. The only people that he has are the two goons that help him murder people. The grandmother sees that The Misfit has never had anyone to take care of him. At the end of this story she tries reach out to him on a spiritual level, but he shoots her three times in the chest as soon as she touches
The conversations between The Misfit and the Grandmother are quite interesting. When she is face-to-face with him and her death is imminent, she is the least willing of the family to accept it. Only the grandmother attempts to talk her way out of the situation even though the rest of her family lies assassinated in the woods behind her. In a last effort to escape with her life, she offers The Misfit all the money she has. He responds, “‘Lady,’ The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, ‘there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip'” (O’Connor 30).
The grandmother says “I know you’re a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people,” showing how she is trying to find a shred of hope in a murderer. O’Connor’s use of southern diction and religious banter develop the grandmother away from superficiality and towards genuineness. The grandmother says “’Listen,’…’you shouldn’t call yourself The Misfit because I know you’re a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell.’” The Misfit replies “I pre-chate that, lady,’” by using the phonetic spelling instead of proper diction O’Connor is showing that the grandmother believes he is a fellow southerner. The grandmother is talking to The Misfit about salvation and she has an epiphany, O’Connor writes “His voice seemed to crack and the grandmother’s head cleared for an instant. She saw the man’s face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, ‘Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!’” After discussing religion and seeing his perspective the grandmother finally feels real sympathy for The Misfit; up until that point the grandmother had been trying to compliment and talk her way out of being killed along with the rest of her family. Unfortunately this is also when the struggle between good and evil ends with the grandmother being killed, “The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest.” The Misfit then says “‘She would of been a good woman’ … ‘if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.’” He realized that her gesture at that moment was out of pure kindness and
O’Connor proves this theory with two characters, the misfit and grandmother. The grandmother is defined by her self-centered qualities, and her Christian influences from God. The grandmother first acknowledges the wanted misfit when she was traveling with her family down a long secluded dirt road, and becomes the cause of a car accident, leading their car to be flipped upside down.... ... middle of paper ...
Never once as the Grandmother was begging for her life, did she stop and beg for the life of her family. Her tactic to save herself went from “You wouldn’t shoot a lady would you?” (O’Connor), to “You’ve got good blood! I know you come from nice people” (O’Connor), then lastly to “If you would pray, Jesus would help you” (O’Connor). Yet to every beg the Grandmother made, the Misfit was completely honest with her, admitting that he would hate to have to kill a lady, but he would do it, admitting that he did come from good people but that he is not good, and admitting that he does not want Jesus’ help, that he is perfectly fine alone. Because the Misfit was so honest and open about who he was and his flaws, the Grandmother realized that she is not a “Good Man”. That she has been lying to herself and the people around her. The Misfit allowed the Grandmother to come to terms with who she really is a person. The Misfit giving her this eye opening realization before taking her life gave her the redemption she needed so