Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find and Good Country People

Two more pertinent points are made by the author, in regards to the grandmother, follow in quick succession; both allude to further yet-to-be seen gloom within the story. O’Connor writes of the grandmother “[s]he didn’t intend for the cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of the gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself” (1043) and of the way she is dressed “[i]n case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (1043). These two observations are innocent enough on the surface but provide true intent on the foreshadowing that O’Connor uses throughout the story. It is these two devices, irony and foreshadowing, that I feel are prominent and important aspects of the story and are evidenced in my quest to decipher this story.

The stereotypes of rural Black women are depicted in the seemingly dilapidated state of mama’s old homestead. This is a stereotype of the poor and humble lives of the black subsistence farmers residing in the old South. Although Dee and her friend look down upon their lives, the reality is different. Mama completely owns her own reality and she is proud

A prolific writer, famously known as Flannery O’Connor in 1953, wrote the short narrative titled “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (Scott 2). However, it was published two years later in 1955, in her second collection of short stories. This particular collection presented the author as a key voice in the ancient American literature world until she met her sudden death in 1964 when she was only 39. The collection also won her tremendous fame, especially concerning her unmatchable creativity and mastery of short narratives (Seel 211). Interestingly, Flannery O’Connor considered all her works realistic and extremely cynical, despite the fact she also incorporated the use of fiction as a style in her works. In addition, her works were fundamentally

Flannery O’Connor was a southern belle born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925. She was a Catholic girl living in the Bible belt of the country. She lived in “two different worlds” (Meyer, 421); the fictional world that she created for her stories and her personal life. In her stories, she used exciting characters so that she could live through them and live an “interesting” life. She uses her stories to portray totally unanticipated, but totally plausible things. “O’Connor’s stories present complex experiences that cannot be tidily summarized; it takes the entire story to suggest the meanings” (Meyer, 426). She uses her characters to show irony, private experiences, fears, and diverse parallels into her story “Good Country People”.

Mrs. Hopewell thinks her conception about “Good Country People” is correct however her and Joy’s conception about Manley is wrong. Mrs. Hopewell believes that a good country female is one who is a school teacher or even a chemical engineer. Mrs. Hopewell says, “You could not say, “My daughter is a philosopher” (O’Connor 3). Mrs. Hopewell is a Christian that lives is a parlor, but it has no bible. One day Manley walks in and tries to sell her a bible however she would not accept it in the parlor because of Joy. Joy does not believe in God, so in Mrs. Hopewell’s eyes Joy is not a good country person. However, Mrs. Hopewell cannot admit that Joy does not believe in God because she will be shone upon. However, Mrs. Hopewell thinks that Mrs. Freeman’s daughter, Glynese, is a good country person because she is an eighteen year old with a lot of admirers, but Glynese was in the car with her date having sex, and Mrs. Freeman thought he was massaging her neck. Mrs. Hopewell also thinks that

Flannery O’Conner is known for her southern grotesque and partly religious short stories that are filled with lessons while some people might even call them parables. Her short stories are also filled with interesting characters that are known for being frank, ironic, and a bit racist. Flannery O 'Connor 's short story “Good Country People” displays irony through the characters names, as well as through the actions of both Manly Pointer and Joy.

In Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People”, country people are seen as good down to earth honest people. However in actuality good people also have flaws in them as well that cannot be seen on the surface. As the story progresses different views cross boundaries and test beliefs, with surprising outcomes. To the dismay of some in this story those outcomes changes their lives forever.

O'Connor was best-known for her short stories, which appeared in several collections, including A Good Man Is Hard To Find and Good Country People. Two short stories that the will discuss farther along in this paper. These two short stories illustrate perfectly O’Connor’s writing style. Growing up in the South she experienced many things. She used these things in her writing which gives them a very personal feel. This paper is aimed to show what it was like to live in the time that Mary Flannery O'Connor grew up in.

When the grandmother recognizes The Misfit from a newspaper article his crew is forced to execute the entire family leaving the grandmother as their last victim. O’Connor’s “Good Country People”, is the story of the Hopewell’s and their interactions with Manley Pointer the stories young, bible selling antagonist. After charming Mrs. Hopewell into having him stay for dinner, Pointer convinces Mrs. Hopewell’s daughter Hulga to see him again in a more private setting. Hulga, a self-proclaimed Atheist, takes this as an opportunity to seduce the young Christian and reveal to him the errors of his faith. In a twist

Both the grandmother from Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” and Mrs. Turpin from “Revelation,” encounter the same epiphany: that all men, ladies and kids are the same in God’s eyes. The comical depictions of these two southern ladies, O’Connor demonstrates the old methods of the south, with its pretenders and fakes, are better left in the past. In both stories, the grandmother and Mrs. Turpin’s appearances are subtly mocked by description. The grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” wears white cotton gloves on a family trip, carefully places her purse in the car, and pins “a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet” in the hope that “anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O’Connor “Good Man” 357).

Based off of the selection of word choice you can understand that this story was taking place in the south. The first way you can see that the story takes place in the south is by this quote “You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad”(O’Connor). The grandmother’s use of the word “ought” should give you an idea that she is southern because if this story took place up north she would have said something like “you should”. This quote also shows you that this family is a part of southern culture because the grandmother says “be broad”. This is implying that the family does not live in a large city and that they may live in a secluded area where it is hard for them to “be broad”. Word choice is also exemplified in the quote “Little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do”. The family’s choice of words when they are talking about the African American race shows they are from the south based off of the stereotypes of the south considering slavery was more present in the south than it was in the north. The way the word nigger is used by the family also implies that the family in the short story is white. The analyzation of word choice in this short story helps identify the cultural background of the family.

Flannery O’Connor’s Southern Gothic short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” is one of sudden violence; although, it begins rather uneventful (Kaplan 1). Bailey, his wife, and their children, John Wesley, June Star, and a baby boy, are all looking forward to a trip to Florida. Grandmother, Bailey’s mom, wants to go to east Tennessee to see her relatives, not Florida. She uses an article in the newspaper that tells of an escaped criminal, the Misfit, which is headed to Florida to try to persuade her son into not going there. Her attempt at persuading her son fails, and so the adventure begins. While the grandmother and the Misfit are the central figures of Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” Bailey, John Wesley, and June Star prove to be instrumental characters because they are used to show a change in the mood of the story.

“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 is one of the names that is closely related to the southern style of fiction.The American south one of the books that she has written in her early times has one of the main characters in her stories that play out almost the same rule of a vicious woman. Throughout “A Good Man is Hard to Find” images of the south are frequent and interesting, while we hear

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a short story written by Flannery O’Connor in 1953 during the period of the Southern Renaissance. Around the time of 1900, the American South was beginning to recover from the economic depression it had been immersed in since the Civil War had ended. After an improvement in economic conditions, there followed a flourishing of culture which produced some very successful literature, and this phenomenon became known as the Southern Renaissance. In the early to mid-twentieth century American writers living in the South began to explore gothic themes, leading to the formation of the term Southern Gothic or Southern grotesque literary tradition. Gothic literature focuses on human terror, is typically set in old, isolated areas or architecture like abandoned buildings, haunted houses or threatening landscapes, and centres on characters who are challenged by mysterious forces. Southern literature often combines with social realism to create strange and unique characters with qualities that force the reader to look closely at the world fashioned in the novel, and the human experience more thoroughly. Flannery O’Connor’s work is well known for including the gothic component, where it includes anything strange, freakish, or perversely weird. ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ features the grotesque as a way of representing humanity by showing how it can cause people to act in a certain way, but also how it can change a person.