Violence Leading To Redemption In Flannery O'Connor's Literature

To begin with, it is important to note that O’Connor was a writer that utilized aspects of foreshadowing to tell her stories. In an article by Marita Nadal entitled Temporality and Narrative Structure in Flannery O’Connor’s Tales, the writer notes “O’Connor is considered a visionary writer and also ‘a comedian of genius’ who recurrently resorts to distortion and excess” (25). This is certainly seen throughout the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, namely through the events that the grandmother appears to foreshadow. Nadal elaborates upon this when she notes

Similarly, Joy/Hulga is forced to face her pride in O'Connor's "Good Country People." Bruce L. Edwards, Jr., notes that "Hulga sees herself as liberating people from their illusions, believing she has none of her own" (901). Joy/Hulga's perspective on life is bleak and realistic. She achieves a Ph.D. in philosophy and believes in the simplicity of believing in nothing. Her mother holds to simple Southern beliefs that manners and tact determine a person's goodness. It is for this reason that she views the Bible salesman as a good person. Joy/Hulga sees through her mother's shallow country ways and despises her for it. Besides her beliefs, her wooden leg is also the center for her pride. She "is as sensitive about the artificial leg as a peacock about his tail" (O'Connor, "Good Country People" 404). She uses it for attention when stomping around the house and for security when refusing to reveal its secrets to Manly Pointer, the Bible salesman. However, Manley is not as shallow as he seems but turns out to bring Joy/Hulga to her point of grace. He robs her security and leaves a helpless, vulnerable, and bewildered new person to reestablish her beliefs. Joy/Hulga has had her pride stripped away and must now change herself.

Flannery O' Connor, a native of Georgia was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century. As a strict Catholic, O' Connor often displayed a sense of spiritual corruption within the characters in most of her stories. One of O' Connor's famous stories, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," reveals the image of spiritual deficiency inherent in the characters which foreshadowed a bloody end.

Flannery O’Connor was an American author who often wrote about characters who face violent situations. These situations force the characters into a moment of crisis that awakens or alters their fate. Her short stories reflect her Roman Catholic faith and frequently discuss questions of morality and ethics. O’Connor’s Catholic upbringing influenced most of her short stories, often accumulating criticism because of her harsh portrayal of religion. O’Connor incorporates the experience of a moment of grace in her short stories to contribute to the meaning of her works and to represent her faith.

Violence and the indefinable definition of a “good man” are two major themes utilized by O’Connor throughout the short story. Violence is a huge factor across America as much as it was when “A Good Man is Hard To Find” was published. Although during those times most individuals were against violence and murder and reacted negatively. People during those times reacted negatively and believed those who committed crimes should be sentenced to death or to cruel punishment. In the short story,

To the casual reader, the writing of Flannery O'Connor can seem cold and void of emotion. Her storylines are like a misty fog in the dead of winter, enveloping the reader with a harsh even violent atmosphere. Her short stories regularly end in traumatic, freak deaths or, at the very least, a character's emotional destruction. An analysis of “Greenleaf,” “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” or “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” will leave the reader feeling empty. The imagination of the reader is not engaged on any level. There is an under current of anti-religion which is intensified by cruelty. O’Connor’s writing is filled with symbolism which is camouflaged by her writing style. Although her writing style is not considered by experts as

Flannery O’Connor introduces her reader’s too unique short stories. They are “Good Country People” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, having too similar characters in different setting, but with the same symbolic meaning. The comparison between Hugla from “Good Country People” to the grandmother in “A Good Man Is Hard to find” is interesting, because they both suffer the same fate. In every short story O’Connor has created a intellectual individual who comes to a realization that their beliefs in there ability to control their lives and the lives of other are false. They enviably become the vulnerable, whereas they assumed it would be different. O’Connor has placed two misguide characters, that deem themselves to be manipulative and compulsive. At the end up of each short story they become vulnerable. Hugla from “Good Country People” and the grandmother from “A Good

An ardent Catholic as she was, Flannery O’Connor astonishes and puzzles the readers of her most frequently compiled work, A Good Man Is Hard to Find. It is the violence, carnage, injustice and dark nooks of Christian beliefs of the characters that they consider so interesting yet shocking at the same time. The story abounds in Christian motifs, both easy and complicated to decipher. We do not find it conclusive that the world is governed by inevitable predestination or evil incorporated, though. A deeper meaning needs to be discovered in the text. The most astonishing passages in the story are those when the Grandmother is left face to face with the Misfit and they both discuss serious religious matters. But at the same time it is the

Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" has a steady demonstration of irony, much of it based on the title of the story. Ignorance is also a major issue in the work, both Ms. Freeman and Ms. Hopewell exhibit this clearly. However ironically, Hulga exhibits this with her knowledge. She takes pride in her own intellect and in her knowledge of existentialism. Hulga's existentialist ideas come crashing down because of her naïveté and lack of dependence on others. Hulga believes she is self sustained however she realizes when the bible salesman steals her leg that this isn't so. Hulga's lack of dependence on others may be the cause of her emotional downfall when she realizes that she can't depend solely on herself. Her pride and wisdom as

Flannery O'Connor used a very different type of southern gothic writing style. Her writing had an unexpected turn of events and cliffhangers making the readers have to think about what the ending would be like. Two of her stories "Good Country People" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find" both display O'Conners religious Catholic background. At the end, the turn of events for these stories is drastic, for example, in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" the Grandmother gets shot dead. While in "Good Country People" Joy loses her dignity, pride, and faith in men. They both change a great deal when abandoned hopeless.

The two kinds of violence that are presented in literature are those that are caused by the characters themselves, and those that are out of the character’s hands and are caused by the author. An example of a character death by another character is in The Naturals by Jennifer Lynne Barnes. In The Naturals, Cassie, a teenager gifted with the ability to profile killers, joins an elite team of other kids who have the same abilities as her. Throughout her course of working with them, she discovers the secret to her mother’s murder and also who is behind it. Upon being lured out into an abandoned warehouse at the end of the novel, Cassie is brought face to face with her mother’s killer, Special Agent Lacey Locke. As Agent Locke is about to kill

Flannery O’Connor is considered weird by her use of words in her writings. During the Southern Gothic tale, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, the main character goes through a chain of events which her death is followed. First the family of six is getting ready to leave on vacation. The first character introduced is the Grandmother. She is a disturbing character which she is telling the kids, June Star and her brother, a memory she thought she had remembered correctly. While she was telling the kids the story she made her son Bailey

"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.

Imagine a world with no pain or suffering. The typical human being would think that a world that does not have to endure pain or suffering would be wonderful, but not Flannery O’Connor. This American writer expressed her theory about why the world was not created to have perfect human beings who live perfect lives by using fictional short stories. Due to her religious beliefs, Flannery O’Connor feels it is necessary to inform her audience the importance of undergoing a hardship, demonstrated in many forms of symbolism. Throughout the short stories “Good Country People” and “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, Flannery O’Connor validates the necessity of distress, whether it be physically or emotionally, in order to reach a state of redemption.

Flannery O’Connor’s first several short stories address the notion that even if your intentions are good, selfish behaviors will always be punished and that disliking unlikable people does not inherently make you a good person. The protagonists of the first three O’Connor stories all have good intent behind their actions and words, yet despite their work and viewpoints they all suffer an immense loss.