Tuesday, February 23, 2010

A Good Man Is Hard To FInd

Recently we were assigned a few readings for my contemporary literature class. The book is by Flannery O'Conner, titled, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories.
In the short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, O'Conner writes about a family trip that ends up going terribly wrong and that there is mainly one character to blame, the unnamed grandmother. This selfish, manipulative, and perhaps religious woman wishes to change the family plans to go to the original destination, she causes an accident by bringing along a forbidden pet, and eventually gets the entire family killed because she can't seem to stop talking. Hints to the death of the family mount as the grandmother brings along the cat, instigates the children to commit tantrums in order to see a house that she mistakenly believes is there, and is the first to introduce the Misfit character. The grandmother is obsessed with outward appearances and dresses in her best for a long car ride. Although some sources, such as wikipedia, state that the grandmother might have been committing an act of charity and realized her foolish ways in the end, I doubt it. The only reason she touched the killer in the end was because he was wearing her son's shirt and in facing certain death she got confused as to who was her son. The entire conversation between her and the killer was so he would let her live, not for the safety of her family. This story basically warns me to keep my mouth shut unless I have something important to say so that I don't end up getting killed along with innocent people.

In the story, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, a wandering man named Mr. Shiftlet, receives a chance at a permanent home but rejects it and ends the same way he started although with material possessions. These possessions have brought very little happiness to him. The characters in this story need to be pushed further. Unlike the story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, these characters seem uncomfortable and half realized. Shiftlet, the wandering man states that he doesn't care for money but shows that in the end, he chose money over the daughter, which could represent that he rejects innocence. The story started out slowly and was harder to care for because of the apparent lack of progress.

Although Shiflet has skills at repairing things around the farm, he is physically broken. He is a one-armed man who, early in the plot, stretches out both arms toward the sun, looking like a “crooked cross”. When Shiflet speaks, it is of odd things, like a surgeon who took out a heart and examined it like “a day-old chicken”. She eventually states that the heart is beyond science and, when asked to sleep in the broken down car, references European monks who sleep in coffins. Although it's legal, the marriage to the woman's daughter doesn't satisfy him and states that it's the law that doesn't satisify him. Immediately afterwards, Shiftlet abandons his new wife and picks up a hitchhiker to make up for this guilt. The hitchhiker apparently sees how much of a liar Shiftlet is and jumps out of the car, leaving Shiftlet praying to God to wipe the scum off the earth.

The Life You Save May Be Your Own, is pretty much about two people using each other. Shiftlet wants the car and the old woman wants to get rid of her daughter while the girl, mute and unable to communicate, is left far from home.

Not a bad read. Because of my horrible sense of humor, I did somewhat enjoy the first story, mainly because the idiot grandmother finally got shot.

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