Irony In Flannery O Connor's Good Country People

As I read Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, I find myself being completely consumed by the rich tale that the author weaves; a tragic and ironic tale that concisely and precisely utilizes irony and foreshadowing with expert skill. As the story progresses, it is readily apparent that the story will end in a tragic and predictable state due to the devices which O’Connor expertly employs and thusly, I find that I cannot stop reading it; the plot grows thicker with every sentence and by doing so, the characters within the story are infinitely real in my mind’s eye. As I consider these factors, the story focuses on two main characters; that of the grandmother, who comes across as self-centered and self-serving and

Webster's online dictionary defines humor as "a quality that appeals to a sense of the ludicrous (laughable and/or ridiculous) or incongruous." Incongruity is the very essence of irony. More specifically, irony is "incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the expected result." Flannery O'Connor's works are masterpieces in the art of literary irony, the laughable and ridiculous. The incongruous situations, ridiculous characters, and feelings of superiority that O'Connor creates make up her shocking and extremely effective, if not disturbing, humor. I say "disturbing" because O'Connor's humor, along with humor in general, most often contains the tragic. O'Connor has been quoted as saying, "The comic and the terrible

Most of Flannery O'Connor's stories seem to contain the same elements: satirical and regional humor, references to God and Christianity, violent similes and metaphors, lots of stereotypical characters, grotesque humor and often focuses a lot of description on character's clothes and faces. However, one of the most important elements of O'Connor's "Good Country People" is the relevance of names. Her choice of names seem to give indications about the personalities of the characters and seem to be more relevant to the story than what the reader would commonly overlook as simply being stock character names. Mrs. Hopewell losing her "joy" (both her daughter and her

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.

The short story “Good Country People” wrote by Flannery O’Connor is a story that shows many underlining themes about the people around us. One of the many underlying themes is that it shows that people are not always who they say they are, we see this when Hulga/Joy meets the Bible salesman, Manley Pointer. Also, people should not judge others by their looks, we see this when Hulga and Mrs. Hopewell think they are superior over everyone else. Throughout the story, Flannery O’Connor uses his description of characters, dialogue, and the use of the reality he created to show the underlying theme of the story.

In "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" O 'Connor uses several kinds of irony to communicate her message about the human condition. The irony of Flannery O’Connor’s story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” may be best summed up best by the line, “I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it” (276). However, this is exactly what she does when she sidetracks the family to a desolate roadside. Verbal irony occurs after the car accident when June Star announces disappointedly, "But nobody 's killed." The story 's dramatic irony centers around the family 's interaction with the Misfit,

There are three principal sources of interest in narratives: suspense, mystery, and irony. In the narratives “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Ronald Dahl, irony is a primary source of interest. Irony is defined as a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result. In both of these cases, the use of irony by the authors greatens the impact the pieces have on their audience. In both “A Rose for Emily” and “Lamb to the Slaughter”, the authors have numerous pieces of irony throughout their respective stories; this use of irony creates a better reading experience for the reader.

“Good Country People,” is a classic example of the use of irony as a technique for imbuing a story with meaning. Irony works on many different levels through the piece. Examples of this range from O’ Connors use of clearly ironic dialogue to the dramatic irony that unfolds between Manley and Joy-Hulga. However the most obvious examples can be found in O’Connor’s characterization of these, “Good Country People.” The technique of irony is applied prominently to the character’s names and behaviors to present the contradictions between their expectations and their reality. O’Connor uses her characters to explore common notions regarding, “good” and “bad” people. Using their expectations for one another, O’Connor ultimately expose their

Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor is a story with a lot of ironic elements in it. These are mostly found in the way that the characters depict themselves in contrast of how they truly are. For example, Mrs. Hopewell says that she has no bad qualities of her own, but she is a constant liar is an how she happened to hire the Freemans in the first place and how they were a godsend to her and how she had them for four years. The reason for keeping them for so long was because they were not trash” (O’Connor 247). Mrs. Hopewell is not the only hypocrite in this story; Manley Pointer is also incredibly hypocritical, fake, and manipulative. He depicts himself as a “Bible salesmen”, but in reality he is a con artist. When Hulga opens up his Bible, she sees a flask of whiskey, cards, and condoms in it. This would be seen as incredibly offensive and sinful to a Christian. According to Thomas F. Gusset, “Joy/Hulga begins to discover that the Bible

The world is a massive place full of endless literature, beginning from ancient scrolls to daily news articles, filled with many secrets, perspectives and surroundings that help connect literature to an individual’s daily life. Some writers use the skills of literary elements to express and discuss an event that has happened to them or what has happened to others. This helps others to comprehend the perspectives of the author’s understanding toward an incident that one might experience. For instance in Flannery O’Connor’s short story, she uses many literary elements to express her views over most of her stories. O’Connor expresses her views in her short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by using the literary elements of point of view, irony, and setting.

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

O’Connor uses irony to bring humor to her story. For example, Crater says “I wouldn't give her up for nothing on earth” (O’Connor). What she meant was she wouldn’t trade her daughter for anything on earth, but what she really says is she’d trade her daughter for nothing at all. The irony is further shown when Crater does, in fact, give her daughter up for nothing. Shiftlet scammed her of her car and money, and her daughter is left at a diner. She wanted a good man for a son-in-law, but now she doesn’t even have a son-in-law. Another example of irony is when Shiftlet prays for God to clean the world of filth, but he himself is the filth he was asking God to clean.

"The representation of the grotesque is a characteristic of much 20th century writing" (Holman 61). Almost all of O 'Connor 's short stories usually end in horrendous, freak fatalities or, at the very least, a character 's emotional devastation. People have categorized O 'Connor 's work as "Southern Gothic" (Walters 30). In Many of her short stories, A Good Man Is Hard To Find for example, Flannery O 'Connor creates grotesque characters to illustrate the evil in people.

“Good Country People” is a classic short story by contemporary American author Flanner O’Connor. Published in 1955, it a compilation of symbolism, imagery, characterization, irony, and allegory which created a Christian Humanism short story. The most famous yet clichéd Idiom “Pride goes before a fall;” adapted from the book of Proverbs in the Holy Bible, is exemplified both literally and figuratively in this short story. Its central message goes to show how the attitude one portrays can lead to their self-destruction.