Family, By Flannery O ' Connor

Individuals should learn to accept themselves for who they are, not what society wants them to accept. As we continue to evolve, we build up our own characters, and they are typically a mix of the ethnicity and culture we inherit from our family, various encounters in our life, distinctive identity and personality we have. Our character and identity is not something that we get easily, it's an intricate process. The story “The Other Family” by Himani Bannerji is based on a mother and a daughter who immigrates to Canada. They belong to a black family, but after the immigration they are living in the dominance of the white society.The school is considered as the hegemony of Canada and teacher is considered as the mainstream, it is a sort of social institution that a hegemony shape but they does not know the awareness of marginalized groups. The mother feels anxious when she sees a drawing of a white family by her daughter. It was the misperceptions of the kid that lead to forget her identity or she was too small to identify it. So to examine about the identity of the marginalized individual the beginning is to focus on the quality of the education. It is necessary for every school system to teach equality and inclusions of every group status so that the marginalized group are not left isolated from the society. Secondly, the fear of the marginalized parents from losing their kids in the mainstream society shows their lack of confidence in their own cultural pride. Since

In today’s society, family is often attempted to be organized within a social structure. Within this structure family typically is consisted of mom, dad, daughter, and son. However, many families do not fit into this configuration. These families may include same sex couples, separated or divorced families, extended families, or even blended families. Even though these families may be happy and healthy, to many they are not considered real families. Going along with the topic of imperfect families, both Barbara Kingsolver and Richard Rodriguez try to break down the traditional family structure through their writing. While Kingsolver’s “Stone Soup” and Rodriguez’s “Family Values” explore the ideas of different family structures and traditional American values, “Stone Soup” breaks down what an actual family is like while “Family Values” expresses the value of family in different cultures.

A seemingly innocent family vacation can turn into a disaster if the members of the family only care about themselves. In the story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor, a self-absorbed Grandmother, too consumed with her own opinions, fails to address the views, feelings and overall well being of others. Her family is not much different in their self-interested ways. This leads them straight to the Misfit whose childhood trauma has caused him to grow up into a damaged individual. The Misfit does not believe in the Grandmother’s religious beliefs and she ultimately cannot reach out and help him. The characters get themselves into a predicament for living in the Id

The poem “Mothers and Daughters” is written by Pat Mora. Pat Mora is a contemporary award winning writer, who writes for children, youngsters and adults. She was born in El Paso, TX in the year 1942. She attains a title of a Hispanic writer; however, the most of her poems are in English. In her literary work, one can observe the different aspects of the immigrants’ lives such as language issues, family relationships, immigrants’ experiences and cultural differences (1187).

The World’s Wife is name of a collection of poems by Carol Ann Duffy. The poems are re-telling the most widely known stories about gender relationships and the traditional views of women. In all of the original versions, that are widely available, we hear what men tell us about the things that happened. They mostly discriminated women’s roles by narrating the stories in a way that they liked, and they hide real truths. In contrast, Duffy is basically trying to focus on the women’s versions of the stories in her poems or the “missing truth”. Though most people generally misunderstood that women are weak and dependent, there are many examples of strong, independent, and intelligent women that were hidden in the stories that are told by the men.

A good man is hard to find is a short story written by, Flannery O’Connor, in which the she describes the story of a family going out for a trip to Florida. The grandmother in the family seems to be apparently the main character in the story and the main one who tries to convince the family that is dangerous to go out when there’s a man named the Misfit who is ready to attack and kill anyone in his way. No one in the family seemed to believe her, and yet; they all decided to travel. In their way to Florida, the family had a road car accident, in which luckily no one seemed to be killed. While waiting for the family’s car to work back again after the accident, there were three men who came along to ‘help’. One of those three men, was the Misfit. The grandmother suddenly recognizes him, and instead for the grandmother to implore mercy for the life of her family members, she decides to do whatever it takes to save her life. In order to save her live, she tries to brain wash the Misfit by trying to make him believe that he is a good man and he wouldn’t dare to kill her. At the end of the story, the Misfit ends up killing the grandmother.

Most families share similar issue. Regardless of race, wealth, or even religion, all families, at some point, hardships or even joys to share. In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” a family is force to face issues caused by poverty, misunderstandings, and separations. Momma, Maggie, and Dee all seems to appreciate their heritage, but the problem is that they do not view the same way. This lack of understanding is universal. In “Everyday Use” the family shares similarities and differences with my family concerning the disrespect, sibling relationships, and hard working parents.

O’Connor’s life was greatly affected by illnesses, specifically Lupus which took both her own life and her father’s life. This experience in her life transferred over into her work, “Good Country People”. In this story, the main character, known as Joy by her mother, suffers from a weak heart that has greatly reduced her lifespan. Joy was a highly-educated character who had even received a PhD in philosophy, but unfortunately because of her artificial leg and heart ailment, was unable to put this education to further use. An impression of this story can be seen in Flannery O’Connor’s own life. In the year 1950, O’Connor was diagnosed with Lupus, an autoimmune disease

Good Country People/Eveline Feeling conscious of one’s surroundings and situation belies the true reality of a dilemma and holds a false foundation of feeling aware and secure. Behind the American fiction of Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” and the Irish short story, “Eveline” by James Joyce, these two literary works showcase a modernized damsel in distress during their time as they appear cognizant of their state of mind, but inevitably resulting into an unintended plight of misfortune. “Good Country People” contains the identity of Hulga, the leading lady of the story that takes place on a tenant farm in Georgia, in which she conveys her vulnerability although inadvertently masking it as she holds herself with great pride through

Pablo Neruda is not unlike many others who survived the war. Those who witnessed the destruction and struggle and who had the ability to express their perspective of it used “the power of the pen” to lament their feelings. Flannery O’Connor was no exception. O’Connor was a social satirist as well as a leader of “Southern Gothic” writing. Flannery O’Connor’s stories often highlighted American cultural challenges. O’Connor wrote stories such as “Good Country People”, as a means to show her fellow citizens that the united feeling they all had during the war effort had quickly faded away and were replaced by division due to the economic opportunities for some but not all. “Good Country People” is a tale of moral blindness. It showed readers that

The significance of the story is that it generalizes the central idea, that family is more important than work. The significance of the story, that family is more important than work is shown through the changes in Tom Benecke. An example of how Tom changed is when he stays home to do work instead of going to the Cinema with his wife, Clare. Staying home showed that Tom was too prioritized with his work, and took his family for granted. Another reason Tom realized family is more important than work is when he went out on the ledge. Tom went out on the ledge and risked his life just to get a piece of paper involving his work. This is important because it showed Tom how much he overlooked what he had, and that he was sacrificing his life for

In the story Country Husband written by John Cheever, the main problem that occurs in this story is that Francis gets into a conflict from the beginning of the story that caused him a change in his personality. This short story starts with the protagonist Francis Weed who got in a plane crash. The weather was described in the beginning as “the sky had been hazy blue with the clouds below the plane”. This shows how very thing was going nice because he is going back to his home and to his wife. Suddenly, there was a weather change, causing the plane crash. “the color of the clouds darkened to grey and the plane began to rock.” The plane crash is the conflict which caused a change in his personality because he almost died.

Kingsolver is a divorced  woman and understands what society means by the phrase “a broken home”. She believes that having  an extended family or divorced family opens up a door that leads to new things in the family. She uses  the tale called “Stone Soup” to talk about how having a family is like having “a big empty  pot”(Kingsolver 152) and about how when one adds new things to the pot it can lead to a happy family.  Kingsolver uses the first person point of view to let the reader have a more personal connection  to the essay. She allows the reader to know what she thinks and how she feels. She writes, “ I dare  anybody to call this a broken home” (Kingsolver 147). The reader knows how emotional she is about  the subject of broken homes. Also, the tone of the essay seems to be a hostile towards anyone who  says that the family is a broken home. The diction of the essay uses both conversational and formal  language to connect with and inform the reader. She uses words like “blended families” (Kingsolver  148) to introduce the reader to different family labels. She uses phrases like “bless their hearts”  (Kingsolver 149) to be more conversational and motherly. Kingsolver uses anecdotes and imagery to  help solidify her ideas. She remembers Andy’s soccer game and how the cheering family brings to life  what a real family is.  Kingsolver tries to persuade the reader that

It is important to stand by your family even when it is challenging. The main way you need to think about this what does your family do for you to help you. Think does it hurt or affect them did it hurt but they did it to make you happy that is what is important. Everybody does something for someone, who did it for you?

Another issue it caught my attention is the fact that family is assumed to be the only one who is always there for helping you, however, in this novel, family is everyone’s only enemy. In Victorian period, the idea of family as sacred was expanded through cultural media, social or political discourses and education. Novels like this which included marriage and domesticity contained debates of love and family either principal or secondary story. These kinds of work made people see family as a source of real happiness, despite the fact that abhorrent mistreatment happened in many households. It would be interesting considering what Marry Strauss, a domestic violence expert, says about this issue; “With the exception of the police and military, the family is perhaps the most violent social group, and the home is the most violent social setting.” (15) Even