O Connor example essay topic

 Kellie JarviCollege Composition I September 25,200 Assignment # The Grandmother's Grace Analy zation of A Good Man is Hard to Find The story A Good Man Is Hard to Find, written by Flannery O Connor, tells the metaphorical tale of a family's fatal confrontation with the Misfit, an escaped serial killer. The incidents and characters throughout the story are aspects of a plot intending to symbolize the spiritual grace passed from one human to another, without regard for kindness or evil. The prominent character in O Connor's story is the grandmother. The story begins with the typical nuclear family being challenged by the grandmother who doesn t want to take the vacation to Florida. She has read about a crazed killer by the name of the Misfit who is on the run, heading for Florida. Unfortunately, she is ignored by every member of the family except for the little girl, June Star, who can read the grandmother like an open book.

While driving to Florida the family has a car accident and is murdered, one by one, by an escaped convict who calls himself the Misfit. But in O Connor's fiction, horror, and comedy mingle, laughter is muted by our sense of unease, fear, and puzzlement as we watch her strange parables of antagonism and violence unfold. She does this through the interaction of a prim little old lady (who is never named) and a serial killer, known as the Misfit. In this discussion, I intend to explain how the characters in this story relate to real life events. I will explore the individual interpretations of mankind's potential to be benevolent, and the possibility for the grandmother to prevent her own death. I will conclude by discussing whether this story successfully imitates real life.

Influences from Real Life In the article, A Good Source Is Not So Hard to Find, J.O. Tate discusses O Connor's transformation of real life events into a fictional anecdote. He says, O Connor took a forgotten criminal's alias and used it for larger purposes: her Misfit was out of place in a grander way than the original (441). The original Misfit was from the headline of the Atlanta Constitution in 1952 who robbed an office and escaped with $150. To characterize her Misfit, O Connor used four decisive attributes from another lionized burglar who was also wanted in Tennessee and Georgia his widespread terror, his manners, his eye glasses, and his two accomplices. O Connor is able to take a piece of reality others might overlook, and turn it into art, one of the many aspects of authorial creativity (442). Interpretation of Good Many see the character of the Misfit as the antagonist in the story, A Good Man Is Hard to Find, but in O Connor's vision, he is not meant to be seen in this way.

We would normally expect a grandmother to represent life's virtues while a serial killer should represent death's malevolence. O Connor, however, seems to imply precisely the reverse in this case. The Misfit represents a man who desired God without even knowing it. He is constantly questioning what his purpose is in life and why he is here. His questioning spirit makes him conscious of seeking the truth and thus capable of eventually finding and believing in God. The Misfit is a man who has the potential to find these truths, the answers he desperately needs, and reform his wicked ways.

After all, the common Catholic belief is that the force of God's grace depends, in a radical way, upon our own receiving or rejecting of it. The Misfit, by committing these violent murders, is actually reaching out to God. So the lack of spiritual guidance in his life causes him to be such a corrupt and lawless man. Foreshadows of Inevitable Death There were many hints and suggestions that something unpleasant was going to happen in this story.

The fact that the grandmother admonishes Bailey of this Misfit and what he did to these people (405) foreshadows what will happen to them. The morning of the trip the grandmother is the first one in the car ready to travel as June Star predicted she would be, "She wouldn t stay at home for a million bucks. She has to go everywhere we go' (405). This can be read as a direct foreshadowing of the grandmother's death and an indication that she will meet the same end they do. Furthermore, although the grandmother did not want to go to Florida, she ironically dresses in her Sunday best. She is dressed very nicely with: navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print.

Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. (406) Knowing the definite ending of the story, the grandmother's elaborate dress symbolizes a preparation for her coffin. Another indication is where the family "passed by a cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island' (407). It is not a coincidence that the number of graves matches the number of people in the car.

Furthermore, this particular foreshadowing image leads directly into the next one: "Look at the graveyard!' the grandmother said, pointing it out. "That was the old family burying ground. That belonged to the plantation. ' "Where's the plantation?' John Wesley asked. "Gone With the Wind,' said the grandmother. "Ha.

Ha. ' (407) The grandmother's reference to the plantation as "gone with the wind' can be seen as an image symbolizing the family's state at the end of the story. Their souls are "gone with the wind' as well upon death. Conclusion After the grandmother hears the shots that kill her son, she is devastated and calls for him in the most heartbreaking way.

She is under pressure, the moment of supreme crisis in her life, and in immense shock while witnessing the Misfit about to cry that her head cleared (415) and she reached out (415) to someone else, even the vilest human being she had ever known who had just destroyed everything she loved, her family. Like the old woman's children, the Misfit has been raised without spirituality, and without spirituality, as the Misfit remarks himself, one might as well enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him' (415). In effect, the Misfit says that if a person is not willing to accept God, then he or she might as well throw propriety to the winds. To reject God's love in petty circumstances is just as sinful as rejecting his love in substantial circumstances, because without God there is no value system. The Misfit says, "She d of been a good woman if there d been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life' (416).

This line is uncomfortably funny, but also moving. O Connor used the family's grandmother as a key component in the story because of her personality and also because of her old age. She was able to show her feeling about the deterioration of respect for family and elders through the grandmother. In the end, she was able to transmit her ultimate message about society and culture in the modern world. The struggle to be free is a great part of life and the world is an ever-changing place. It is human nature to follow your own road, but in the end redemption and grace emerge in the face of unbearable tragedy Work Cited O Connor, Flannery.

A Good Man is Hard to Find. An Introduction to Fiction. Ed. X.J. Kennedy, and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 2002.405-416. Tate, J.O. A Good Source Is Not So Hard to Find. New York: Longman, 2002.441-443.33 c.