Mrs. Jernigan's AP Class discussion
Flannery O'Connor
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O'Connor
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Maria
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Sep 25, 2015 06:22AM
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1. Opens with a relevant connection.
2. Have a thesis statement that identifies a specific focal point and connects to its purpose
3. Body paragraphs that include your observations along with commentary that explores its significance.
4. Embed Quotations from your stories with commentary.
5. Write a conclusion that takes your response wide and shows why it matters.
6. Title it creatively.
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Another Magician: - Something Wicked This Way Comes
After following John Wade through his horrid transformations in O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods, looks like Fitzgerald provides another chameleon to lead us through this picture show of the Lost Generation. Dick Diver, Carnival Leader/Dream Weaver, takes shape and substance through direct and indirect observations of Rosemary, a lady whose "body hovered delicately on the last edge of childhood" (4). Poor Rosie, she will be drawn to Dick and his high society funhouse, but are her wings strong enough to carry her from its destruction?
The Divers wield culture like "kings," "rajahs," and "princes" (15). As a couple they are as mysterious as the sea- compelling, alluring, yet dangerous like fire. Dick's attentive handling of Rosemary "was all completely there" for "his voice [...] wooed the world" (19). Her reaction to the carnival was simply to let its "expensive simplicity" (21) consume her, but as the narrator quickly reminds us, she was "unaware of its complexity and lack of innocence" (21). Dick's "taking care of her" (21) includes his seductive words as he tells her she "look[s] like something blooming" (22). The god-like nature of the Divers is reinforced by Fitzgerald's characterization of their audience in that they "turned up ashen faces to [them], like souls in Purgatory watching the passage of a mortal" (23). Clearly distinguishing the two groups and the power they wield over others, the narrator gives this perception a duality...a hidden, secretive persona that begins to bleed into the "reality." The veil shifts as an outsider observes a hidden encounter or exchange of words. As she attempts to share her observations, she is silenced. For the Divers have fierce protectors (Cerberus like guardians) driven to guard hidden truths from crushing the "rose-colored" sandcastles built for the amusement and entertainment and seduction of their following.
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Smoking Agents of Grace
In her memoir Just Kids, Patti Smith talks about living in the Chelsea Hotel in the 70s and tapping into the collective artistic spirit in order to shape her own craft. As she worked to discover her inner voice, she immersed herself in the words and works of those who lived and died in the hotel. She says, she "sniffed out their spirits" and "scurried from floor to floor, longing for discourse with a gone procession of smoking caterpillars" (Smith 113). For Smith, her muses range from Dylan to Rimbaud, Thomas to Wolfe. In a similar notion, Flannery O'Connor sought inspiration and refuge from theologians, philosophers, and writers - seeking answers to life's spiritual questions. Art for her was more instructive in that she wished to awaken sleepers who needed to "see." In her short fiction, O"Connor employs agents of grace to break sinful characters from their lives of deceptive mediocrity and reinstate a true vision.
"Greenleaf" examines the farm-life of Mrs. May, a stereotypical O'Connor character, whose opinions and perceptions show her ignorance and lack of self-awareness. In the story, Mrs. May spends most of her time criticizing her hired hand, Mr. Greenleaf, who according to her was "too shiftless to go out and look for another job" as he lacked the "initiative to steal," but if you ever wanted to talk to him, "you had to get in front of him." She contradicts herself throughout the story, a mark of her self-deluded status as the protagonist of the tale and the one whose perspective clouds or illuminates our own. Her faulty vision also includes Mrs. Greenleaf who she deems "large and loose" and one whom "Jesus" would be "ashamed" of for her unconventional prayer methods and "healing." In reality, Mrs. May's harsh criticisms and nagging eventually pin her against the hood of her car in a moment of "unbearable" awareness as the agent of grace, the bull (a totem of the Greenleaf's themselves) "pierc[es] her heart [...] in an unbreakable grip." May's awakening comes with a price, her life, but her soul sees the truth.
In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the grandmother's vision is just as distorted, therefore, qualifying her for a visit from O'Connor's chosen vehicle of grace, the Misfit. The older woman, similar to Mrs. May, also wields harsh critiques with her words and actions, commenting upon topics and individuals she should leave alone. Her grandchildren, June Star and John Wesley, provide insight into her character as they tell us "she has to go everywhere we go" and "she wouldn't stay at home to be queen for a day." Yet, this granny admonishes her grown son when he speeds and lies to her family about a "secret panel" in order to detour the trip to Florida. In contrast to the misbehaved children, she manipulates and frustrates using passive aggressive behavior that showcase her selfish ambitions and self-assumption. Because of her, the car crashes, and although to June Star's disappointment, "Nobody's killed," O'Connor ironically brings the family face to face with her agent, the escaped convict known only as the Misfit. Granny tries to use these same manipulative tricks on him only to end up getting the entire family killed and leaving her "in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child's and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky." Her death comes only after she has reached out for the criminal, calling him one of her own "children." O"Connor grants her humanity but "awakens" her sleeping morality and true vision of love and salvation.
While Smith and O'Connor hold different beliefs regarding spirituality, both women create out of who they are and what they believe.
“...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”In "Good Men are Hard to Find" O'Connor's The Misfit is strikingly similar to The Joker, with his apathetic and Nihilistic world view. O'Connor's character form through hidden lies buried beneath stereotypes.
In each of O'Connor's stories, she focuses the on a pretentious protagonist, and wrestles with their pride. O'Connor ironically writes in what she calls the "Christ haunted" south. O'Connor voices violence as a sense of redemption, and CHristianity as a coping mechanism to wake the sleepers. The Misfit "with his eyes red-rimmed" awakes a sense of realization in the grandmother, as she comes to terms with the relatability of sin. The Grandmother’s life comes full circle moments before her death, a Catholic ideal, similar to Miss May’s epiphany moment “remaining perfectly still in freezing unbelief”. These last moments awaken protagonists from their life of sin as a last chance at redemption. When characters don’t die (Ulga Joy), the experience an equally violent glimpse of glory. This brutal epiphany is reality catching up rather than punishment. Flannery criticizes vanity filled Southerners and the use of Christianity as a coping mechanism, or masking of evil. O’Connor’s unresolved endings are abruptive and jarring in nature, as if this supernatural explosion will lead awaken characters from a life of sin. While O’Connor isn’t as lyrical as Faulkner or as colorful and feathery as other authors, the simplicity in her writing only highlights the haunting undertones that spew forth at the end, making them all the more disturbing.
Finding the Good in DysfunctionThriving on dysfunction, O’Connor’s family in A Good Man is Hard To Find compares immensely to the internal family connection in Tracy Letts’s August; Osage County. Both pieces of literature tend to shed light upon the darkness and humor of family indecency-- irony thrives throughout and works to shape the theme. While both families have major problems in both pieces, they are entertaining to observe-- O’Connor and Letts designed their families to have deep internal issues while, at the same time, allowing the audience to enjoy the irony. Because O’Connor’s sense of humor bleeds into her stories, A Good Man to Find, as well as her other stories, thrive on their central theme of irony which proves that dysfunction is “no real pleasure in life”.
As well as A Good Man to Find, O’Connor’s Greenleaf and Good Country People both elucidate her love for irony in her stories. One has the ability to recognize the irony in Good Country People due to the fact that in the second paragraph, O’Connor describes Joy as “a large blonde girl who had an artificial leg”. The entire plot of A Good Man is Hard To Find is ironic; the grandmother tries to avoid going to Florida by convincing the children that she “wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn’t answer to my conscience if I did”. Greenleaf thrives on the fact that the bull is this seemingly innocent creature that happens to kill one of the main protagonists. All of these stories work to prove O’Connor’s admiration for dysfunction-- she tends to exaggerate certain aspects of family to show that people can think too critically towards others. She wants people to observe other people in a less judgmental way; especially when referring to religion. Hurting others because of their beliefs should be “no real pleasure in life”.
Blows to the MindFreely admitting it, the Joker from Dark knight provides shocking suffering to remind people that they cannot be perfect. His self described role as "an agent of Chaos" both mirrors and juxtaposes O'Connor's own agents for change in Good Country People, Greenleaf and A Good Man is Hard to Find. O'Connor uses shocking suffering in these stories to notify her characters of southern moral degradation and push them out of their insipid shells.
In her passage, Good Country People, O'Conner writes, “I hope you don't think I believe in that crap! I may sell bibles but I know which end is up” (290). O'Conner uses this passage to suggest that much of southern Christianity is hollow. O'Conner writes further, “He took one [A Bible] of these and opened the cover of it. It was hollow” (289). The hollowness of his Bible shows that the mirage of "goodness" and "Chrustianess" this boy presents has no backing what so ever. This character's attack on Christians puts real Christians in a favorable light and also gives one of O'Conner's characters a chance to change and this idea of change drives O'Conner's writing. In Greenleaf, she writes, “One of his horns sank until it pierced her heart and the other curved around her in an unbreakable grip” (333). This brutal image at first glance seems to destroy the woman, but it actually symbolizes O'Conner's writing by savagely showing how Jesus can reach into one's life.
O'Conner moves her characters out of their lifestyle through a final change before the moment of death. O'Conner emphasizes this in A Good Man is Hard to Find when she speaks through the Misfit, “She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody their to shoot her every minute of her life” (133). By juxtaposing false southern stereotypes of Christianity with true Christianity, O'Conner tries to tear away the same stereotypes many of her characters face in real life southern Christianity. More than just tough love, this treatment shows a deep concern for the real world and a desire to change it.
A Grace Swifter than DeathA lion and his lioness prowl around in the veldtland, but this has happened before. George Hadley and his wife are just a bit nervous, not much, as the lions have done no wrong, no harm. Yet something is a little... off... foreboding or even ominous, maybe. It takes a second, and they are dead. The lions had turned on a dime and clawed the couple through. This is the shock-ending of The Veldt, a Ray Bradbury short story. Like in much of Flannery O’Connor’s work, the ending is unexpected, quick, and startling, and often ends in death. The surprise ending is not just a technique used for enjoyment, it is a tool that O’Connor wields in order to drive the truth that she stitches into the story into the hearts and minds of her readers. The shock at the end sharpens the story’s moral so that it can pierce farther into the brain of the reader.
‘Greenleaf’ is a peculiar story with lots of development and no real action until the bull shows up in the final scene and charges Mrs. May, driving her through as “one of his horns sank until it pierced her heart” (333). Moments before, Mrs. May was alive, in her car, going on with her day. The event happens so suddenly and so out of the blue that it catches the reader off guard. In fact, if the reader skimmed the story, he or she might even miss this death entirely. The point startling the reader so is in order to drive the point of the short story home. It is at these surprising moments in her story that O’Connor’s message comes through--in this case (as in most of her stories) her message is that of God’s divine grace. Another nice effect that the surprise ending has is that O’Connor uses it to mirror God’s grace, which sees as quick, effective, and unforeseeable.
This startling stylistic choice is once again used by O’Connor in her short story ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’ The story is quirky and funny and honestly quite relatable--it details a long car ride to a typical vacation spot with whiny kids, uptight parents, and a tight car. It’s a fun read, but not much seems to be going on. That is, until the unnamed grandmother, who has already annoyed her son, Bailey, quite enough, causes her “cat [to spring] onto Bailey’s shoulder” (124). “The car [turns] over once” and is thrown off the road (124). The entire story suddenly changes its mood, becoming much more serious and foreboding. Then, of course, a murderer shows up to the scene and quickly exterminates the entire family. Like ‘Greenleaf,’ the ending is so unlike the the beginning of the story that it grabs the reader's attention right at the moment O’Connor unveils the moral to the story (which, again, has to do with the omnipotent grace of God).
O’Connor uses satire, a dark sense of humor, and unpredictability to not only weave her lessons into her story but also write enjoyable stories that readers love to imbibe. The plot-twist ending, something O’Connor is famous for, combines all of these things. It is a very effective tool in her writer’s toolbox, and draws readers of all sorts to her stories. However, most importantly, it shows the unpredictable, swift, and powerful grace of God. Like the deaths at the end of both of these stories, grace swoops in and penetrates these stories' characters, often through brutal means.
A Fogged Perception Upon arriving on Shutter Island, Teddy Daniels believes he is a detective, hired by the island’s insane asylum to find an escaped patient. The film, Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, tracks his mission, but Daniels never finds the patient. To his disbelief, the man he knew as his partner on the case reveals himself as Daniels’ doctor. Daniels discovers that his job as a detective has only ever been a figment of his imagination, and in reality, he himself is a patient in the asylum, lost in his own delusions. Everything he knows prior to this revelation becomes a lie.
This disquieting resolution reminds us of O'Connor's use of similar endings in her short stories.This technique not only captivates O’Connor’s audience from an enjoyment standpoint, but also makes the endings more powerful and memorable in order to teach a lesson.
In A Good Man is Hard to Find, a seemingly innocent family of six take a drive on “a good day for driving,” when suddenly, the passengers “[are] thrown to the floor” and the car lands in a ditch after turning over (124). To the family’s relief, a car soon stops to help them after their accident, but the three men “had guns” (126). O’Connor’s use of foreshadowing at this point hints at an ending that still comes to much of a surprise. One of the men goes by “The Misfit” and the grandmother quickly fears what he might do to her and her family after remembering why she recognizes him. The grandmother insists that The Misfit is “a good man at heart” and begs him to “pray,pray” (130). O’Connor often includes religious undertones in her stories in a somewhat satirical and unconventional way to expose her characters’ flaws. In this case, the grandmother’s flaw is her manipulative nature. Although the grandmother seems religious at times, she claims that “maybe He didn’t raise the dead” when The Misfit declares that “Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead” (132). This suggests that the grandmother only mentions Jesus in the hopes of saving herself and convincing The Misfit to comply with what she wants without really believing in Jesus. In the end, The Misfit “[shoots] her three times through the chest” along with the rest of her family (132). O’Connor’s employment of this shocking ending makes it difficult for her readers to forget it and displays the consequences of manipulative faith instead of true faith.
In Greenleaf, O’Connor’s protagonist again seems to have a religious upbringing. Mrs. May “was a good Christian woman” but did not “believe any of it was true” (316). She thinks that her farm aid, Mr. Greenleaf, does nothing helpful, but in reality, he always works and keeps the farm running without Mrs. May. Mrs. May’s arrogance and superior attitude come back to hurt her when in the end of the story, the bull that she tries for days to rid her property of “[pierces] her heart” with his horns (333). Again, O’Connor’s surprise ending encourages the reader to not repeat the mistakes of the protagonist.
With the use of surprise endings, both Scorsese and O’Connor advise their audiences against creating alternate realities and to instead recognize their flaws in order to avoid suffering.
Maria wrote: "Now that we have read three short stories by Flannery O'Connor, we will write a response that addresses the similar characteristics found in her fiction. Write a response that does the following:..."
Stuck in the South
Even after a country bumpkin falls into the lap fame, she still cannot shake those essential southers attributes. Miley Stewart (AKA Hannah Montana) and her family glisten with Tennessee ways of living and the humor that arises from this. Flannery O'Connor explotes this same idea. The stereotypes that fall in line with the “Southern style” have lived through generations. O’Connor’s famous characters, Hulga and her kin in Good Country People and Grandmother and her son’s family in A Good Man is Hard to Find all embody this idea and reveal her genuine opinion of the South and its citizens. O'Connor's fiction has lasting significance because it is rooted in the her Roman Catholicism and in the Christ-haunted character of the American South.
O'Connor is quick to place her characters and stories in the heart of southern America. Each tale though, gives the reader a new look into this world with the help of different types of characters. O’Connor gives the reader a glance into a square lady not fitting in the round pigeon hole of Southern living in Good Country People. HUlga loses her faith in "the nothing" and is afforded the opportunity for grace and redemption if she will grow spiritually as a result of her humiliation. Her walls are high and her ego is higher. She looks down on those “good country people” around her and wishes she was “in a university lecturing to people who knew what she was talking about. “ (276). O'Connor agrees with the “good country people”, similarly to Hulga, viewing the stupidity and simplicity of these lives. This story explores the idea of simple southern living to those of a higher education. Is the intellectual pride the problem or the ignorance of farm living? O’Connor examines flaws in both aspects of life. Hulga certainly is better equipped intellectually, but she seems completely unsatisfied emotionally and falls victim of the Bible salesmen.
In A Good Man is Hard to Find, after the Misfit's men have killed Grandmother’s family, he stands over her threateningly.”She saw the man's twisted face close to her as if her were going to cry and she murmured, "Why, you're one of my babies; you're one of my own children!" (132). The grandmother recognizes the sin in all of them as the violence of the situation reveals the her characteristics that will carry her to eternity. Her dying pleads are “Jesus, Jesus” (131). In the end she is still greeted by death. So what was the point? Did Jesus not save her or did Jesus prepare her for the full life ahead of her? Here as well, the reader may find the characters rather dumb and naive, but with faith that could last into eternity.
In all of O’Connor’s short stories the reader receives a literary smack to the face. She throws in a major turn of events. From Greenleaf and A Good Man is Hard to Find death of our main character catches the reader off guard and for Good Country People it is the violent death of Hulga’s pride. She thrives on twists to help keep the country tale stay exiting. O’Connor takes a magnify glass to the "Christ-haunted South". Through each tale the spiritual and intellectual levels of a southerners are challenged. She writes what she knows and illuminates the idea that southern folk are both religious strong yet intellectually weak. She admires their faith and makes it a vital aspect for all of her pieces.
The Dilemma Between Irony and HopeNorman Bates from the movie Psycho stated that, “People always mean well.” The grandmother from the short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, tries to tell The Misfit that she knows he is a, “good man,” and that he, “must come from nice people.” Both Norman Bates and the grandmother state what humanity struggles with hoping. Individuals want to believe that mankind means well, but becomes conflicted when we are presented with a reason to abandon that thought. In the movie Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock) and the short story A Good Man is Hard to Find (Flannery O’Connor) the director/author utilize dramatic irony to show that a blissful hope has the capability of being eradicated no matter how strong the desire.
Throughout the movie Psycho allusions to birds are utilized to give viewers an inside into Norman’s psyche. Norman invites a young woman, Marion, into his parlor to eat. Upon researching this movie I noticed that many of Norman's references to birds have a greater meaning. For example, Norman says in the conversation about his mother that, "she's harmless, she's as harmless as one of those stuffed birds." This scene gives viewers a sense of apprehension. An interesting fact I read was that the word "bird" is a British slang term for a young woman. In addition, Hitchcock creates suspense through dramatic irony. While Marion is taking a shower viewers see a dark shadow on the more dominant side of the screen. The viewers watching this film know that there is a person behind her. However, Marion does not know this. The killer is holding a knife, leading viewers to feel scared for her and want to scream, "get out!!!!!" The hope of my own and many others was slowly destroyed through the significant effects that the dramatic irony played.
Second, Flannery O'Connor weaves together a hope for change with the dramatic irony she has already laid out. In A Good Man is Hard to Find readers know something that the characters do not when a car accident occurs on the side of a back road. The Misfit asks Bailey and John Wesley if they would, "mind stepping back in them woods." Then, "a pistol shot from the woods," is heard. The grandmother remains oblivious, but readers can infer that the boys have been shot. Also, that everyone left, too, will be shot. The grandmother brings in religion, prayer, and tells The Misfit that he is, "not a bit common," and, "a good man." That hope for change becomes shattered by the unstoppable path O'Connor laid out. In addition, O'Connor displays similar irony and hope in Good Country People. Manley Pointer claims that he has, "this heart condition," and, "may not live long." When I read this I noticed that he was guilt tripping Mrs. Hopewell and that he is not as innocent as she thinks he is. My thoughts became reaffirmed when he took advantage of Hulga. Just like Hulga I, too, was hoping and wondering if Manley Pointer was, "just good country people?" I thought he was, "a perfect Christian," in the beginning. However, every hope can become eradicated no matter how strong our desire of it to not be so. Flannery O'Connor utilizes dramatic irony to eradicate hope in a distinct way that teaches the dilemma of innocence.
In Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, McCarthy suggests a decline in humanity through the thoughts of an old county sheriff named Sheriff Bell. Sheriff Bell states that “the world ain’t what it used to be” as he witnesses all the brokenness and crime in his Texas county. O’Connor similarly suggests the same decline through a grandmother in her short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. O’Connor suggests a digression of humanity in her short stories, Greenleaf, Good Country People, and A Good Man is Hard to Find through the debunking of southern stereotypes. In O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find, the grandmother makes statements such as “In my time, children were more respectful” (118) and “People are certainly not nice like they used to be” (122). An older owner of a sandwich shop agrees with the grandmother as he says, “A good man is hard to find. Everything is getting terrible.” (122). These statements are supported by rude children in the story along with a criminal on the run called, “the Misfit”. The south has the reputation for being polite and simple. However, the grandmother in A Good Man is Hard to Find claims that she has witnessed a digression from this reputation. O’Connor evidences a similar digression in her short story, Good Country People. In Good Country People, a woman named Mrs. Hopewell tells a bible salesman, “Why, I think there aren’t enough good country people in the world.” (279). The bible salesman appears to be a good, simple country person, but this idea is falsified later in the story has he turns out to be a scam. He turns out to not be as simple as originally thought. In the end of the story, Mrs. Hopewells says, “He was so simple, but I guess the world would be better off if we were all that simple.” (291). On the surface, the bible salesman appears simple and just a good country person, but as it turns out, he is quite the opposite. This personifies the south.
In her stories, O’Connor debunks the idea that country people are very simple as she shows the brokenness that is universal to all people, not excluding those in the south. Often times, the south as seen as possibly a safe haven from the evils that occur in other places in the world, but O’Connor suggests that the simplicity of the south is nothing but a facade. All people suffer from brokenness, no matter where they live.
The modern world is one of quick decisions with no time for apologies and one of instant judgements, assessments, and assumptions upon the encounter of something new. In the southern “Bible Belt,” as it’s called, assumptions are as much a part of life as going to church on Sunday. You assume that the southern belle down the road is sweet as can be and reads her bible every morning and that the pastor at the local church hasn’t sinned a day in his life. You assume a great deal of things about the people around you and eventually “when you’re surrounded by people who share the same set of assumptions as you, you start to think it’s a reality” (Emily Levine). Flannery O’Connor brutally assaults assumptions in Greenleaf and Good Country People in order to point out the false reality behind assumptions and boil the “lukewarm” Christians back into true faith.In Good Country People, O’Connor paints everything from the title to the surprisingly evil character in an assumptive light. One of the ‘good country people’ Mrs. Freeman has a “forward expression...steady and driving like...a heavy truck,” and O’Conner makes the reader assume that Mrs. Hopewell has her all figured out. Mrs. Hopewell claims to have taken advantage of Mrs. Freemans status as a ‘good country person’ putting her in charge of everything so that there was nothing to stick her nose into. To our astonishment Mrs. Freeman is not as simple as her title makes her out to be. She sees through Pointer’s act the whole time claiming that “some [country people] can’t be [as] simple” as Mrs. Hopewell assumes pointer is. Pointer is the main desecration of assumptions in this story. Mrs. Hopewell sees him as a “nice young man” that tried “to sell [her] a Bible” and she recalls him saying “he was so simple.” Her daughter Hulga thinks the same thing calling Pointer “good country people” as he steals her prosthetic leg after seducing her and deceiving her. In reality Pointer is a monster that is wily and deceptive and is certainly not simple nor “good” in any sense of the word.
In Greenleaf, O’Connor depicts the image of a hard working old woman named Miss May with two useless sons and a good for nothing farmhand and his family who live on her property and seem to be more trouble than they are worth. The Greenleafs (the farmhand’s family name) seem to be border line crazy with filthy children and a hyper religious mother that cries for Jesus to “stab [her] in the heart” and writhes on the ground praying for random people. The assumption is quickly made that they are the epitome of country folk. Mrs. Greenleafs faith is assumed to be overzealous due to miss May’s judgement of it. A closer look at the story reveals that the Greenleafs are actually the hard working family while Miss May does nothing but complain. O’Connor makes it painfully clear that we should not have assumed Mrs. Greenleaf to be overzealous as we see Miss May impaled by the horn of a bull representing the Lord’s judgement on her for being a “good Christian woman” who did not “of course, believe any of it” to be “true.” The assumptions made about the Greenleafs were from the limited third person view of Miss May and O’Connor punishes us as we see the religious Greenleafs reap the rewards of Christendom while Miss May faces divine retribution.
O’Connor laces her stories with stereotypes and lulls the reader into making safe, but surprisingly wild assumptions so that she can crack the whip at the end snapping us out of our disillusions about mankind.
It’s Most Unstable at the TopThe story starts with a villain in hero’s shoes. Jordan Belfort flipping stocks, making money, and fooling everyone he was taking that money from. He built up a persona and an air of invincibility, one that was not shattered until he was sentenced to 36 months in prison. He fell from grace ungracefully, by overlooking an FBI agent who would later imprison him. He left his hearing hands cuffed and head bowed despite spending many months before his arrest belittling the same officer who would ruin him. The Wolf of Wall Street shows the fate many arrogant characters meet. Coincidentally, many arrogant heroes live in Flannery O’Connor’s stories. Maybe that’s why O’Connor’s works, Good Country People & Greenleaf, read like flipped narratives. O’Connor’s antiheroes fit the role of many more typical author’s villains by underestimating an individual and later being overtaken by them. Through this common plot arc, O’Connor uses well crafted facades and deeply sown stereotypes to show the vulnerability of the arrogant.
O’Connor’s first victim of miscalculation comes from Good Country People. She’s “rude,” “brilliant,” and has “taken the Ph.D. in philosophy” (276). Her name is Joy, or it was before she changed it to Hulga, a name born of both narcissism and spite. Hulga thought herself better than all those around her, she wanted to be “far from these red hills and good country people” that surrounded her (276). “She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity,” and thus never married, dated, or associated with those she didn’t have to (276). That is, until the bible salesman came. He was “just a country boy,” who posed no threat to the clearly superior Hulga, or so she thought (278). He seemed to represent “real innocence” to the mature Hulga, and she intended to take advantage of that (289). It is this air of superiority that made Hulga vulnerable to the cunning bible salesman. Even as he was stealing her leg, she asked with a quiver in her voice, “aren’t you just good country people” (290)? Her arrogance led to her vulnerability, she thought she was untouchable and ended up the fool.
Next, O’Connor shows the pitfalls of overconfidence through Ms. May in Greenleaf. Ms. May deigned to associate and employ the Greenleafs. She considered herself “a good Christian woman,” who was above her ungrateful children and certainly above her uncouth employees (316). She disparages Mr. Greenleaf, her farmhand, repeatedly, and consults him only when the issue of the bull has become urgent. She demands that he kill the bull that his sons owned because it wandered on to her property and she felt totally justified (if a little vindictive) in this action. Ms. May hardly relied on Mr. Greenleaf and certainly never respected the bull until the moments before her death. She did not act, acting was below her, instead she called out, “Here he is, Mr. Greenleaf,” and waited for him to corral the bull that was soon to kill her (333). Ms. May “remained perfectly still, not in fright, but in a freezing unbelief,” that such a fate could befall such a good christian woman such as herself (333). The bull proceeded to gore her, unaffected by her haughty persona. Ms. May thought she would have the bull problem solved for her, because it was a job for a lesser individual, but in the end her arrogance became her downfall as it was the bull that ended her reign as a presumptuous landowner and employer.
Nobody falls harder than the one at the top, and nobody is more at the top than the one who wholeheartedly believes there is none above them. Hubris leads to destruction almost inevitably. Even excellence has a foil. Overconfidence leads people to avoid measures of safety. It makes them believe they are invincible. That is when their fall comes. This theme of arrogance leading to vulnerability is present in literature, film, and the real world. It explains just how dangerous arrogance is and why it should be avoided.
The Self-Righteous SouthIn Harry Potter, Rowling creates the image of a rigid, arrogant, and overall unpleasant housewife of the name Petunia Dursley who seeks to control every aspect of her tiny life that never seems to go the way she plans. Petunia is a clear example of many of the female characters in Flannery O’Connor’s literary works who establish their illusion of self-importance just to be destroyed by their own weaknesses.
The characters in O'Connor's short stories "Greenleaf" and "Good Country People," O'Connor portrays her female characters as dominant and aggressive southern women with some belief system that eventually turns to mock them. In Greenleaf there is the outrageously self-absorbed character of Mrs. May who has made the people around her out to be incompetent and lazy just to make an image of herself as the only one keeping her little world together. She expresses her concern that her boys may “marry trash and ruin everything that she has done.” Mrs. May carries with her the notion that she has controlled everything up to a point, that point the time when the things she has always controlled have the opportunity to break the mold of Mrs. May. In this way, through Mrs. May’s outspoken independence, she has made herself the God of her own oblvious universe. She made herself into the image of the very God of the Christian faith. And she is “a good Christian woman” although “she did not, of course, believe any of it was true.” Until she is pierced through the heart and soul by the horns of a bull representative of God himself. And then comes the character of Joy/Hulga who refuses to accept the idea of there ever being a God. Hulga drowns herself in own scholarliness and bitterness where she can rule, because with her PhD in philosophy she can belittle the theologies of the conservative south around her. So, Hulga is similar to Mrs. May in the way that she plays God of her own reality to make it more attractive to her and to how she would like to live. Hulga is also very independent, or at least likes to put up that front. When Hulga attempts to boost her own ego and prove the hypocrisy of the “bible salesmen” and people like, the situation turns on her. As Hulga attempts to prove that to there is no such thing as “good country people” she finds herself in shock and murmuring the question, “Aren’t you just good country people?” And as the bible salesman runs away with Joy/Hulga’s beloved leg, she is left to sit in her own self pity as she contemplates her ignorance, and as we contemplate our own, just as O’Connor intended.
Mother Knows BestIn the Disney remake of the Rapunzel fairy tale, Tangled, Rapunzel's mother controls her life for her own benefit and lives a self-righteous lifestyle. This mother - Mother Gothel - refuses to see her own faults which, in the end, lead to her defeat and death. Mother Gothel uses a special flower and Rapunzel's speical powers in order to keep herself young and powerful, and insists that she knows best in all matters concerning Rapunzel's life. She takes a very condescending tone with Rapunzel, much like Mrs. May in O'Connor's Greenleaf story and the grandmother in O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find. These women are self righteous and refuse to see their own faults, yet eventually are all brought to their downfall through a symbolic death. O'Connor uses the pious attitudes of these women in her stories to communicate the idea that one's own self-righteousness can lead to a tragic downfall.
In O'Connor's short story, Greenleaf, Mrs. May describes herself as "a good Christian woman with a large respect for religion" who warns her boys against becoming like society. She often compares her sons to Mr. Greenleaf's son, and cannot (or refuses to try to) understand why Mr. Greenleaf's sons are more successful than hers. She treats her boys like idiots, claiming to be the only one who knows what "reality is" in the family. Throughout the story, Mrs. May refuses to see her own faults and shortcomings, claimiing that she has "been working continuously for fifteen years" and therefore has "every right to be tired." Lastly, O'Connor uses irony when Mrs. May states "some people learn gratitude too late, [...] and some never learn it at all." This ironic statement highlights her lack of gratitude in her life and her self-righteous attitude. The only object that has the power to bring Mrs. May back down to earth is the bull which represent's God's grace. O'Connor utilizes the character of Mrs. May to highlight the fact that a refusal to see one's own faults leads to a tragic downfall in the form of a symbolic death. The bull representing God's grace shows how Mrs. May's pious attitude higlights her lack of grace and need for a downfall to reality.
Similarly, in O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find, the grandmother refuses to see the good in the current times wil making statements such as "People are certainly not nice like they used to be" and "everything is getting terrible." However, she does not consider her a person of the current times, and therefore holds herself above her children and grandchildren. This attitude blinds her from seeing that the times themselves aren't that bad, but her attitude is. In order to bring the grandmother down from her self-righteous attitude, O'Connor employs the character of "The Misfit" to bring about the grandmother's symbolic death. O'Connor warns the reader against the typical Southern Christian's self-righteoud attitude by having the grandmother suffer a tragic death. This death symbolizes the downfall that becomes inevitable once one adopts an attitude that does not acknowledge their own faults.
The refusal to see one's own flaws blinds a person not only to areas where they could improve but also to the inevitable person/object that will bring them back to a reality where they are aware of their own faults. People that adopt at self-righteous attitude hover dangerously at the edge of a cliff where, at the bottom, rests grace and self-awareness. An extremely small force is all that is required to send them over the edge of this cliff, and oftentimes these self-righteous people are blind to the oncoming of this event.
