Got a couple little papers I'd like to get looked over, make sure I haven't made any huge fuckups.
Check it out, don't check it out, whatevers.
Check it out, don't check it out, whatevers.
Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is hard ToFind, like many of her stories,is about searching for the hint of a divine spark in all humans. Itis a story about trying find that hint of divine grace in all humanbeings.Flannerystarts of her story with a grandmother that does not seem to care forher child, or her grandchildren other than how they might payattention to her, she cares for her daughter in law so little thatshe does not even care to mention her name. The grandmother wantsnothing more than to get her way in every conceivable facet of life. Despite this at the end of the story, when everything she loves isviolently taken away from her, she sees the man who slew everyone inher life in a beautiful light. She reaches out to this man who isthe epitome of evil and tries to envelope him in love in what mightonly be seen as divine grace.
Many who readthis story do not see this dramatic change as a divine revelation butinstead as another selfish attempt by this lady to survive, to gether way, when no one else in her family did. Yet, if you read thisstory carefully you will notice that this lady has never been for alack of words. In a vain attempt to get what she wants, she waxeseloquently upon the evils of The Misfit and why the family shouldforsake the path to Florida. She natters on incessantly to thefamily about what they are passing, she babbles to the babe about thesights and scenery that they pass on their drive, despite the factthat not one person is paying attention to her she talks. And shetalks. And she talks. For her to be struck dumb is in itself a breakfrom her character, then for her to be concerned with this man'ssoul, for her to believe that he is one of her flesh and blood and toreach out to him tenderly is such a break that one of the onlyexplanations left to us is divine inspiration. The Misfit's reactionin itself could be confirmation of this. Going by what we know ofThe Misfit and of what he has done, why would anyone in thatsituation ever try to communicate with him that way? So The Misfitrecoils, shocked, and ends her life.
FlanneryO'Connor herself was [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]deeplyreligious, as a result of this the majority of her stories seem toask us if there is a divine streak within us. In order to get us toask this question her stories are typically extremely dark, not boundby any normal sentiments, and plainly realistic. As Flannery herselfsays in one of her letters “[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Thestories are hard but they are hard because there is nothing harder orless sentimental than Christian realism.” She could have easilytold a story where The Misfit realized his mistake and was redeemedby his faith and belief in Jesus meeting her divine inspiration, butthat story would not have introduced any hard questions for thereader to pursue and think about. A happy ending makes the readerfeel good, but too often it is unrealistic.[/FONT]