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Gender role in literary
Gender role in literature
Gender role in literary
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Throughout life, everyone views themselves much worse than how others see them. In Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People,” Joy changes her name to Hulga because she views it as an ugly name, which allows readers to believe that she views herself as ugly because of her disability. One of Joy’s disability comes from her leg being shot off in a hunting accident when she was ten years old and has had an artificial leg for twenty-two years now (1342). With this artificial leg, Joy might believe that this prevents her from doing activities that other thirty-two-year-old women do and because she cannot participate, she views herself as different. In turn, she could come to the conclusion that she is ugly because of her differences and chooses an …show more content…
Mrs. Hopewell reveals to readers that “with the best of care, Joy might see forty-five [because] she has a weak heart” (1343). With Joy’s weak heart, she does not commit herself to men because she might have a fear of the two of them getting too attached, or even married, and her unexpectedly passing away. Joy purposely changes her birth name to an ugly name because she views herself as ugly with her artificial leg and her weak heart, when really, she might be beautiful. This is her way of dealing with her life, in the sense of maybe thinking ‘well I’m going to die at an early age anyways and with my conditions there is nobody out there that would love me so since I’m ugly, I’ll just change my name to an ugly name.’ When, in reality, there is someone out there that would love her just the way she is with her disabilities and all. Even if she is supposed to die at an early age, there is always a slight chance that she might live much longer than the doctors expected her to. In conclusion, the way we view ourselves is not always how others view us. We, especially as women, are much harder on ourselves with our self-image than anyone else would ever
Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" is a story told through the examination of the relationships between the four main characters. All of the characters have distinct feelings about the others, from misunderstanding to contempt. Both Joy-Hulga, the protagonist, and Manley Pointer, the antagonist, are multi-faceted characters. While all of the characters have different levels of complexity, Joy-Hulga and Manley Pointer are the deepest and the ones with the most obvious facades.
One of the most interesting characteristics of Flannery O’Conners writing is her penchant for creating characters with physical or mental disabilities. Though critics sometimes unkindly labeled her a maker of grotesques, this talent for creating flawed characters served her well. In fact, though termed grotesque, O’Conners use of vivid visual imagery when describing people and their shortcomings is the technique that makes her work most realistic. O’Conner herself once remarked that “anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it will be called realistic.”
When an individual has to do a compare and contrast for a short story in the realm of literature, I believe that you have to take into account the deeper meaning in a short story. You have to read between the lines, one has to know what the symbols and what metaphors are. “A symbol is something that has a literal identity, but also stands for something else—something abstract—like an idea, a belief, or an emotion. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between one object and another that is different from it.” (Clugston, 2014) The reader needs to know that the author is using figurative language in the short story. Once the individual can understand this, the literature work will be significantly easier to do a compare and contrast essay.
now the closest anyone has ever been to her; Hulga was on top of the
...of a minor character in the story but she is referred to as having two emotions, “forward and reverse”. This is important because when a person is forced to go in reverse they must face something or learn something they don’t want to know about themselves. This seems to be what happens during the course of the story for Joy-Hulga. Although all the characters in the story are stuck in reverse, the only character that is forced to realize her weakness, which destroys the façade that she created is Joy-Hulga. It seems that in this story as in life the most high and mighty suffers the greatest fall. Joy-Hulga was the one who perceived herself to be the high and mighty of the characters. This attitude is displayed with many of her comment to Mrs. Hopewell. Perhaps when Joy-Hulga remarks to Mrs. Hopewell, “Woman, do you ever look inside?” she should’ve taken her own advice.
Charles Spurgeon, a Particular Baptist preacher, known as the “Prince of Preachers,” once said, “If I was a Roman Catholic, I would turn a heretic, in sheer desperation, because I would rather go to Heaven than to Purgatory.” Spurgeon and Flannery O’Connor’s characters have similar ideology playing there, just by the sheer definition of a heretic: a person holding an opinion at odds with what is generally accepted, or relatively, a freethinker. O’Connor’s characters go through many sufferings and through trials, but focusing on “Good Country People,” we can see how they all are heretic, and until they have some sort of trial, do they understand some sense of religion
“A Good Man is hard to find,” a short story written by Flannery O’ Connor, is one of the most interesting stories I’ve ever come across to in my life. Born as an only child into a Catholic family, O’ Conner is one of the most “greatest fiction writers and one of the strongest apologists for Roman Catholicism in the twentieth century (New Georgia Encyclopedia).” She was a very strong believer in her faith and she used her stories as a tool to send the reader a message that were most likely ignored and almost never uttered out loud. The story revolves around a grandmother who believes to be high and mighty around others. This results in her downfall later on.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem once said, “The dragon is by the side of the road, watching those who pass. Beware lest he devour you. We go to the father of souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.” The dragon is a symbol of temptation, always present, always watching. People will either fall into temptation or have to avoid and deny it. This symbolism of temptation is portrayed in many of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories. Pride and vanity are visible in Hulga in “Good Country People,” General Sash in “A Late Encounter with the Enemy,” and Mrs. McIntyre in “The Displaced Person.”
In the poem “Barbie Doll” the speaker take more drastic measures to make herself acceptable to society. In line12 the speaker takes drastic measures to fix herself, “So she cut off her nose and legs.” This action will lead to her death in the end of the poem which would not have happened if her peers did not mock her about the way her nose and legs looked. People are aware of their own imperfections, but when people mock them and do not accept them because of it, that is when the drastic measures of starvation, excessive exercising, and depression can begin. It can happen without the pressures of society, but if society mocks them, it pushes the person further in to a state of
...she has also lost the foundation of her identity, her leg. She is faced with the realization that she has been naïve all along. In her pattern of being quick to make assumptions to build her own self esteem, Joy-Hulga has not used her intelligence in a socially beneficial way.
"You Don't Have to Be Pretty. You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked 'female.' - Diana Vreeland. Joy (Foster) Harjo an inspiration to many people of all different ages and cultures, she has had her ups and downs throughout her life. But, she never let that get in the way of what she believes in. Harjo’s main topic of her writing is about her culture, and how the whites took everything that the Native Americans have. How did Joy Harjo’s childhood life influence her writing?
Flannery O’Connor's perception of human nature is imprinted throughout her various works. This view is especially evident in the short stories, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Revelation.” She conveys a timeless message through the scope of two ignorant, southern, upper class women. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” O’Connor presents readers to a family who is going on a road trip with their selfish grandmother. She is a religious woman who does not follow the set standards that she preaches. Similar characteristics are exposed in “Revelation.” As the self centered Mrs. Turpin sits in the waiting room, she contemplates on her own status with God. Nevertheless, she still commits the sin of judging others. In both of O’Connor’s short stories, these controversial protagonists initially put up a facade in order to alienate themselves from their prospective societies. Although the grandmother and Mrs. Turpin both believe in God, O’Connor utilizes theme to expose that they also convince themselves that they can take on His role by placing judgement on people who, at the most fundamental level, are in the same category as them.
...ated and had a Ph.D. in Philosophy. She could not call her daughter a schoolteacher, a nurse, or a chemical engineer and that bothered her. These people and episodes in Joy's life made her a very miserable person. They made her hate all that surrounded her, which included flowers, animals, and young men. This is why Joy changes her name to Hulga when she was twenty-one years old. She believed the name represented her as an individual. The name was fierce, strong, and determined just like her. The name reminded her of the broad, blank hull of a battleship. Joy felt the name reflected her inside and out. It separated her from the people who surrounded her that she hated the most.
In the essay, “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self,” Alice Walker writes about how she lost her eyesight in one eye due to a childhood accident. Alice communicates to the reader how, when losing an eye, she cared much less about the loss of her eyesight and more about how she appeared to others. In the story, Alice recalls different points where the accident affected her life. To her, the loss of her eye was not just a physical impediment, but a mental one as well. Once she had a surgery to remove the “glob of whitish scar tissue,” she felt like a new person, even though she still could not see. Alice says, “Now that I’ve raised my head,” and can stop holding herself back from being the greatest she can be. Just as Alice is affected by
Because of this disability, she feels that everyone has to show pity for her. She expects only pity because of her leg and her heart condition. Joy has no religious values or believes in family values as much. She is really intelligent and makes that her strongest value mostly because of her being a cripple, and she has a Ph.D. in philosophy. It is that reason that Joy thinks she has the right to act the way she does more so because of her leg, and that 's how people will only see her as. Joy 's relationship with her mother is not quite as loving as it should be. Joy changes her name to Hulga, more so to annoy her mother, who doesn 't think it 's a beautiful name. Joy 's mother has this belief that all people who are brought up right with family values and God are good country people. This belief is something Hope doesn 't believe in too much until she meets a traveling bible salesman, named Manley