Analysis Of Good Country People By Flannery OConnor

As the narrator, Claire creates an emotional and compassionate tone throughout the story. Her dialogue constantly consists of words such as “honey”, “mommy”, “love”, which constitutes to the overall mood of the text (Carver 363). Additionally, she is constantly catering to her husband and child by cooking, cleaning, and performing tasks of the typical “stay-at-home” mom. Her affectionate personality, want for control, and mother-like performance plays a role in Carver’s explanation of the stereotypical mother and wife.

“A Good Man Is Hard To Find” and “Good Country People” are two short stories written by Flannery O’Connor during her short lived writing career. Despite the literary achievements of O’Connor’s works, she is often criticized for the grotesqueness of her characters and endings of her short stories and novels. Her writings have been described as “understated, orderly, unexperimental fiction, with a Southern backdrop and a Roman Catholic vision, in defiance, it would seem, of those restless innovators who preceded her and who came into prominence after her death”(Friedman 4). “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” and “Good Country People” are both set in the South, and O’Connor explores the tension between the old and new South. The stories are tow

“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor is a short story told in third person omniscient point of view. The story contains a lot of irony, symbolism, imagery, and many more literary devices. Flannery O’Connor’s purpose was to demonstrate how “good country people” are not so “good.” Instead, they were categorized as “trash” and “good.” The short story interprets how the characters are contradictory and how women are portrayed in 1955 as well as today’s society.

Everyone wants to believe that they are beautiful. For this reason, we tend to seek out that approval from others including our parents, friends, and other loved ones. Flannery O'Connor's story, "Good Country People," focuses on this particular theme. In her narrative, a young girl named Joy Hopewell longs for her mother's approval. When she does not find it, Joy begins to believe that she is unworthy of anyone's admiration. This basic premise allows for Manley Pointer to easily win Joy's trust. Flannery O'Connor includes this string of events in order to show the significant role parents play in developing their children's self-esteem, as well as reveal that even though Joy Hopewell begins to believe that she is not beautiful, she

Thesis Statement: In Flannery O'Connor's short story "Good Country People," the expulsion of the outside world allows for more emphasis on the symbolic nature of each of the active characters.

    “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” one of O’Connor’s best works, describes a family on a trip to Florida and their encounter with an escaped prisoner, The Misfit. Although “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is an early work in O’Connor’s career, it contains many of the elements which are used in the majority of her short stories. The grandmother, a selfish and deceitful woman, is a recipient of a moment of grace, despite her many flaws and sins. A moment of grace is a revelation of truth. When the grandmother calls The Misfit her child and reaches out to touch him, the grandmother has a moment of grace that enabled her to see The Misfit as a suffering human being who she is obligated to love. The grandmother realizes that nothing will stop The Misfit from killing her but she reaches out to him despite this. The Misfit rejects her love and kills her anyway. This moment of grace is very important

Joyce Carols Oates highlights the importance of developing relationships in families. Connie’s future could’ve had a completely different outcome if she would’ve been raised with attention, love, and communication. Arnold would’ve never had the opportunity to manipulate her if she had her family’s protection; however, that was not the case. Connie’s family must live with a guilty conscience knowing that her kidnapping could’ve been avoided if only they were less neglectful towards

People in the south often get stereotyped based off their appearances or the way they act. Most southerners have rituals they follow, but some are just living life. The way Flannery O'Connor deals with the traditional social structure in the South in her fiction shows that it was of major concern to her and was the source of much of her power and humor. O'Connor's exposition of a southern society which values a good, moral person yet struggles to identify Three of her short stories deal with the relationship between Christianity and society in the South: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," "Good Country People," and "Revelation.”

Flannery O’Connor, undoubtedly one of the most well-read authors of the early 20th Century, had many strong themes deeply embedded within all her writings. Two of her most prominent and poignant themes were Christianity and racism. By analyzing, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” these two themes jump out at the reader. Growing up in the mid-1920’s in Georgia was a huge influence on O’Connor. Less than a decade before her birth, Georgia was much different than it was at her birth. Slaves labored tirelessly on their master’s plantations and were indeed a facet of everyday life. However, as the Civil War ended and Reconstruction began, slaves were not easily assimilated into Southern culture. Thus, O’Connor grew up in a highly racist area that mourned the fact that slaves were now to be treated as “equals.” In her everyday life in Georgia, O’Connor encountered countless citizens who were not shy in expressing their discontent toward the black race. This indeed was a guiding influence and inspiration in her fiction writing. The other guiding influence in her life that became a major theme in her writing was religion. Flannery O 'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of a Catholic family. The region was part of the 'Christ-haunted ' Bible belt of the Southern States. The spiritual heritage of the region profoundly shaped O 'Connor 's writing as described in her essay "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South" (1969). Many

Flannery O’Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia. She was an American writer. O’Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories in her life time. She was a southern writer who wrote in Southern Gothic style. In the Article, Female Gothic Fiction Carolyn E. Megan asks Dorothy Allison what Southern Gothic is to her and she responded with, “It’s a lyrical tradition. Language. Iconoclastic, outrageous as hell, leveled with humor. Yankees do it, but Southerners do it more. It’s the grotesque.”(Bailey 1) Later she was asked who one of her role models was and she stated that Flannery O’Connor was one she could relate to. One of O’Connor’s stronger works was “Good Country People” which was published in 1955.

There are many themes within Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People”. Religion is definitely one of the more prominent themes that the story holds. Like most of O’Connor’s works, it plays a big part in the actions or characteristics of the main characters. This is all on the surface however. The more important and less accentuated theme is the various facades the characters create for themselves. These facades prevent them from facing their true “grotesque” selves. These facades also hide their weaknesses that they have no wish to face ort just can’t understand. People must be comfortable with every aspect of themselves, because certain people, who in this story

In comparison to, Mrs. Freeman who is the complete opposite of Mrs. Hopewell whom she has worked for, for four years. O’connor does not show her point of view in this short story only what Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga describe her to be. She is described as very outspoken on whatever he thoughts are. She is very familiar and used to the unexpected due to her daughter Carramaes early marriage and pregnancy at the age of fifteen.

Flannery O'Connor remained a devout Catholic throughout, and this fact, coupled with the constant awareness of her own impending death, both filtered through an acute literary sensibility, gives us valuable insight into just what went into those thirty-two short stories and the two novels: cathartic bitterness, a belief in grace as something devastating to the recipient, a gelid concept of salvation, and violence as a force for good. At first it might seem that these aspects of her writing would detract from,

“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Good Country People” are two of many short stories by Flannery O’Connor. In addition, the two stories enfold a mystery ending in catastrophe. O’Connor uses plenty of irony or subtle kind of sarcasm in developing each of the stories. Coincidentally, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” and “Good Country People” are both set in the South during the earlier years, when segregation was an issue and trust was not. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Good Country People” are two ironically twisted tales of how two different families lives are altered after trusting and being mislead by a stranger.

Flannery O’Connor’s Good Country People – a tale of two worlds– emphasizes the distinction between those christened “good country people” and those who are deemed “trash”. Through the pompous and condescending voice of Mrs. Hopewell, a mother of “admirable” character, O’Connor contrasts the two very different personalities of Joy/Hulga, Mrs. Hopewell’s eccentric daughter, and Manley Pointer, suiter-turned-conman to Joy. Mrs. Hopewell’s inner thoughts and inhibitions regarding both people confess her definition of “good country people” and how she applies that very definition to those around her.