Flannery O'connor S A Good Man example essay topic

There has been a significant amount critical analysis written about Flannery O'Connor's short stories and novels. There is a significant amount critical analysis about Flannery O'Connor because she used so many styles that have not been used before. Flannery O'Connor ranks among he most important American fiction writers of the twentieth century. Flannery O'Connor was born in 1925 in Savannah, Georgia, and lived there until her family moved in 1938. O'Connor and her family moved to a small Georgia farming town named Milledgeville. When Flannery was 15 years old her died father of a disease to the immune system known as lupus erythematous.

O'Connor attended Georgia State College for Women after graduating from Peabody High School in 1942. While at Georgia State College for Women, O'Connor provided illustrations for the school newspaper and yearbook. In the fall of 1949, Miss O'Connor moved to a home Connecticut where she boarded with her two friends, Sally and Robert Fitzgerald. After one year of hard work O'Connor produced her first novel entitled Wise Blood. During this one year, O'Connor and the Fitzgeralds grew closer together as she became the godmother of the Fitzgerald's 2 third child.

Later that year, O'Connor reported to the Fitzgeralds a 'heaviness' in her typing arms. O'Connor was later diagnosed with lupus erythematous, the same disease that killed her father. Flannery O'Connor moved back to Georgia to live with her mother on a dairy farm near Milledgeville where she would spend the last 13 years of her life. While in Milledgeville, O'Connor developed a routine writing schedule and raised small farm animals. In 1955 O'Connor produced her first collection of short fiction, A Good Man is Hard to Find. The title story of this collection is one of her best known works.

O'Connor eventually died in August 1964 having produced many contributions to American literature history. A Good Man is Hard to Find is one of the most characteristic and most frequently anthologized of all of O'Connor's works. This story explores the idea that unfortunate events can lead to knowledge. The plot of this story is simple and clear: a family on vacation is killed by an escape convict. O'Connor does a great job in '... preparing for and unfolding the dramatic conflict between the grandmother and The Misfit, O'Connor creates pure art out of the tragicomedy of life' (DLB vol. 2 383). In this, O'Connor shows her characteristics of a good Christian writer: good is at any rate contorted out of evil.

In all of O'Connor's stories there a certain pattern of a saving gesture or revealing word. In A Good Man is Hard to Find, the saving gesture is the grandmother's recognition of The Misfit. 3 Miss O'Connor is criticized about her style of writing. O'Connor is classified as a 'Southern' and a 'Catholic' writer by many critics. The major theme is that the Christian religion is a very shocking, and scandalous business.

She has a sharp eye and a good ear for southern lifestyle. O'Connor uses straightforward language and firm images to create a powerful body of bizarre and grotesque literature (A AYA vol. 7 175). Many of O'Connor's stories are deep and '... she [keeps] going deeper... until making stories became, for her, a way of testing and defining and conveying that superior knowledge that must be called religious' (DLB vol. 2 382). O'Connor's stories center on the act of destruction which leads to the revelation of God's grace and the possibility of redemption. Miss O'Connor's stories also brought the issue of religious faith into focus.

Her stories are not pious, but they are more astonishing and unusual. In a majority of all O'Connor's stories, at least one character has some sort of deformity. Characters sometimes have one leg, one arm, a club foot, a cast in one eye, or even deaf mutes. Some characters are lunatics, mental defectives, or hermaphrodites.

O'Connor's view of physical or mental deformity on the outside, always suggest inner, spiritual deformity. In conclusion, Flannery O'Connor ranks among he most important American fiction writers of the twentieth century. Many critics say the intensity of all of her writings come from her simplicity of style, and That is why she is such an outstanding 4 writer. O'Connor's life was very short because of all the talent she possessed.

Miss O'Connor contributed a number of great stories, and ideas to America. Drake, Robert. 'Flannery O'Connor: A Critical Essay. ' Studies in Short Fiction (1966): 48. Rpt. In Short Story Criticism.

Eds. Laurie Lanz en Harris and Sheila Fitzgerald. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1996.346-348. Marks, W.S. 'Advertisements for Grace: Flannery O'Connor's 'A Good Man is Hard to Find. ' 's tidies in Short Fiction (1966): 19-37.

Rpt. Eds. Margaret Haeres and Drew Kala sky. Vol. 23. Detroit: Gale, 1996.181-184. O'Connor, Flannery.

'A Good Man is Hard to Find. ' O'Connor. New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovic h, Inc., 1983.137-153. ' O'Connor, Flannery.

' Authors and Artists for Young Adults. Vol. 7.1991. ' O'Connor, Flannery. ' Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 2.