Essay about Analysis of "Greenleaf" by Flannery O’Connor

Apart from using the protagonist, O'Connor also used another character, June Star, the spoiled and stuck-up grand-daughter, to symbolise the class-consciousness that exist even in the younger generation, especially at a young age. We see June Star giving a rude comment, looking down at the lower-class whites by claiming that she will not live in a "broken-down place for a million bucks" (p.2119) when asked by Red Sam's wife if June Star would like to be her little girl. It is also interesting to note that O'Connor highlights her concerns of the fact that social discrimination is beginning to spread even from people of the same community, that is, among the whites themselves. The little girl also depicts her class-consciousness in the story when she commented on her refusal to marry a man that will only bring her a watermelon on Saturday (p.2118). Even at a near-death situation, June Star commented that she does not want to hold hands with Hiram as he reminds her of a pig (p.2125). Just like her grandmother, they are so concerned about status or class of people around them that they fail to

One artistic aspect of the book is that Stockett chose to tell the story from three different women’s perspectives. Using this stylistic technique helps keep the reader more engaged in the book. Each woman, whether it be Aibileen, Minny, or Skeeter, uses a

Mrs. May views Mrs. Greenleaf, the wife of her hand around the farm, as one of the lowest members of society. Mrs. May not only sees her as less of a woman than she is, but is resentful of the manner in which she lives her life. From Mrs. May’s first introduction to the woman of the Greenleaf family, when Mrs. Greenleaf and her five daughters pulled up to her farm in a “pieced-together truck” (26), she has resented the mangy manner in that the Greenleaf woman, lead by Mrs. Greenleaf, live their life. Because they do not necessarily care about being the stately woman Mrs. May thinks they should be, Mrs. May views them as less than her and not as true woman. Further, Mrs. May has an incident when she runs into Mrs. Greenleaf observing her religious practices in the woods. This involved Mrs. Greenleaf, after she cut out horrible stories from newspapers digging a hole in the woods, burying them and falling to the group and moaning for an hour or so. Mrs. May describes the experience as Mrs. Greenleaf, “moving her huge arms back and

    “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

O’Connor paints a picture of a woman who thinks she has everything figured out, but her use of irony in the setting shows

The character grandmother in O’Connor’s story has grounds the reality of the events and drives the family into tragedy. She is a central character in O’Connor’s story and is depicted to be a dynamic character stuck in the old ways. Through her actions and the idea of being stuck in the old ways of thinking, she leads her family into tragedy. Being the main character in the story, Grandmother significantly adds to the development of the plot. The author manages to win the attention of the reader from this character owing to the manner in which she shapes the storyline. Grandmother’s reminiscing of the old ways claims a distinctive curiosity from the reader and helps in

Language and imagery plays a dramatic role in portraying relationships and feelings/thoughts of the persona. Whilst in ‘Burning Sappho,’ the mother’s attitude towards tasks is portrayed as emotionless (“the child is fed, the dishes are washed, the clothes are ironed and aired,”), language is utilised within ‘Suburban Sonnet’ to construct the mother’s mental state and situation as dire. “Zest and Love drain out with soapy water.” The use of two personal, passionate adjectives and the depiction of them being physically overcome by soapy water directly link the mother’s loss of feelings and fiery emotion to the household chores and duties. For example, she “scours crusted milk,” as a part of her role as mother and housewife as the reader is positioned to reject this requirement as a result of the huge impact to her quality of life (“Veins ache”). The literal image of a dead mouse symbolises the mother’s situation as the ‘soft corpse’ directly represents the mother, that is, emotionally dead as a result of the entrapment by society. The reader is positioned to fully

Since “Annabel Lee” and “The Highwayman” are both narrative poems, the speakers of each story influence certain features of the plots. The narrator of “Annabel Lee” is also the affected lover who is recalling the catastrophic incident that is his lover’s death. Since he is actually a part of the storyline, he conveys the plot the way he had experienced it as it began “with a love that was more than love” but progressed onward to the “killing [of his] Annabel Lee”. The passionate narrating establishes his reliability as a narrator as the audience can truly sense his pain. However, the narrator of “The Highwayman” is not involved with any aspect of the storyline and, therefore, tells the story from a bystander point of view. Even though the narrator is not directly impacted by the events, they are still able to captivate the audience by utilizing lifelike elements, such as the “tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot” of the horse, to institute their trustworthiness as a narrator. Therefore, both narrators within “Annabel Lee” and “The Highwayman” add different elements of persuasion to their narratives to establish an authentic storyline.

The ideas of the dominator and dominated evident in the word choice of the paragraph hint at the mechanics of Mrs. May’s murder. When the bull takes her life in the story’s final scene, she is penetrated by the horns that were presented to her on the first night outside her window.

Mrs. May belongs to a very important group of characters in the works of Flannery O'Connor: the widows. These kinds of characters usually are superficial and proud of their social position. Her widows have an excellent opinion of themselves and they usually feel superior to the people around them. Mrs. May, the protagonist of the "Greenleaf" shows all these features.

The story is on third-person (objective), but if the story were to be explained in omniscient first person, we would not have gotten all the information. we would not have gotten all the information about the persons thoughts.

Southern Gothic Tale of Manipulation An enjoyable family vacation turns into an entire family left for dead in a senseless murder. Through foreshadow and symbolism, in the short story A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor portrays the theme of manipulation. Flannery O’Connor understands that an unexpected death occurs at the end of the story--leading to definite evidence that foreshadowing hints to the theme of manipulation.

In the novel, the author uses characters in the novel to narrate the story in their eyes, therefore being a first person but in some parts in the novel, the narration is seen from an omniscient point of view. Though the novel is mainly first person, some can argue that some parts are in different point of

            The author uses a number of different literary devices to describe the hardship she feels such as metaphor, simile, and imagery. The author revels that her life and the chickens are not very different. “I felt her body break deep inside my own chest” (6). The way the chicken has to be killed after being loved for so long is the same way Hall feels about being with her husband for so long and then having him cheat on her and leave her. “Guilt and fear tugged me like an undertow” (7). The chickens are being killed by the one that loved them and in the same way; Hall is killed by the one she loved: her husband. The author uses a numerous number of vivid imagery to describe the struggle she is going through with her husband leaving and her having to kill the chickens. “Her shiny black beak opened and closed, opened and closed” (5). The rumors and suspicions that the author’s husband was cheating on her would come and go, until it reached a breaking point

Finally, the most important feature that O’ Connor utilizes in her short story is emotional appeals due to how through emotion is when the revelation is determined by the readers the most. After the tragic accident that occurred to Mrs. Turpin by the pleasant lady’s daughter, Mary Grace, by being called a “old wart hog” and being told to “go back to hell where you came from” (460), and being hit in the eye with a book. However, this tragic event emotionally affected Mrs. Turpin more than it did physically due to how she was not able to get those words out of her mind ever since Mary Grace told them to her. Mrs. Turpin starts to question herself as a person and she thinks to herself, “How am I a hog and me both? How am I saved and from hell