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Good Country People Comparison

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Temptation is an occurrence in all daily routines, accompanied with pride and selfishness, due to our lack of knowledge. In “Good Country People”, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, and “The Displaced person” written by Flannery O’ Connor, temptation, pride, and selfishness are common themes. Each short story shows the weakness people have and how easily they are able to give into the sins laid before them. Many famous people have been quoted or have written about how easily temptation, pride, and being selfish can come about, including St. Cyril of Jerusalem. Temptation, pride, and selfishness are unavoidable evils, and they are brought about by our human weakness, each of these short stories, exposed each characters flaws. In “Good Country People”, Joy Hopewell, portrayed the opposite attitude of her name she had a …show more content…

Shiftlet. Mr. Shiftlet is enticed by the old and beaten up car on the ladies property, “…and [his eyes] had moved to a shed where he saw the square rusted back of an automobile. “You ladies drive?” he asked. “That car ain’t run in fifteen year,”…”Nothing is like it used to be” he said. “The world is almost rotten”(O’ Connor 53). Eventually, Mr. Shiftlet gets the car running and the elderly woman is so impressed with him and his actions that she wants him to marry her daughter. They get married and they take off together, until they get about one-hundred miles away, where they reach a restaurant. They go inside the restaurant and the girl falls asleep, thus the Mr. Shiftlet takes off without her, leaving her alone and helpless. Mr. Shiftlet does not resist the temptation, therefore showing his human weakness. Mr. Shiftlet, however feels remorse for his actions as he continues on and he is reminded of the God above. His remorse does not mean the action never happened, it just showed that he was a God fearing

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The greatest virtue one can possess is being generous. The Decameron “Day 10, story 3” and “Day 10, story 4” present different perspectives of generosity. Nathan and Gentile express generosity in different ways, but Gentile lacks true generosity and possesses insincere intentions. Nathans attitude, method, and transformational results overpower Gentiles.

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590 Words | 3 Pages

The great Richard Bach once said “Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully.” Often people overlook the fact that their conscience is telling them that they are selfish, but it is up to them to fix it. In his novel, The Wednesday wars, Gary Schmidt highlights the dangers of being selfish and self-centered through the changes of Holling Hoodhood.

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704 Words | 3 Pages

Each one has learned many lessons from their courses in life which established their personal morality. In particular, the author, Wes Moore, was driven by positive outcomes from his negative conditions resulting from him a successful person in his adulthood. As a result, the inspiring story of the author, Wes Moore, could be described in three themes: Peer, Parent, and Family Support; Loss and Redemption; and Decision Making.

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554 Words | 3 Pages

Essay on Sacrifice and Values In the Bible, the son of God was crucified by the Roman for his “crimes”, however, Jesus sacrifices himself not only for his alleged non compliances with the law, but also for the sins of all of humanity. Similarly, character in 20th century American literature are also required to sacrifice for the betterment of others, however, sometimes the aforementioned characters do not make the sacrifice to save others, but rather, to save their own lives or livelihoods, they sacrifice the greater good for their own profit. Throughout 20th century American literature, characters make sacrifices in order to benefit the greater good.

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834 Words | 4 Pages

Generosity has the potential become a detrimental effect on an individual’s prosperity. Excessive compassion in tolerating one’s reluctance to improve their life intensifies the complexity of recovery. It lessens the individual’s incentive to revise their habits. In the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the author portrays her parents as highly intelligent yet irresponsible individuals who persistently forgive themselves for the negligence of their obligations. Therefore, lacking compulsion, the family never succeeds in sustaining a comfortable lifestyle.

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1183 Words | 5 Pages

When Shiftlet first notices the car on the Craters’ property, it is presented as a potential path to salvation: helping a family in need by fixing up their old car. However, Shiftlet takes the path of deviance and plots to steal the car from the family. The car represents a fork in the road between two life paths: That of righteousness and that of deceit. As Shiftlet is driving off alone with the car that he conned his way into attaining when “a cloud… [descends] over the sun… with a guffawing peal of thunder from behind and fantastic raindrops” (O’Connor 538). The storm that ensues represents the divine reaction to the deplorable actions of Shiftlet and his choice of running from it represents his decision to pursue a life filled with sin.

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1005 Words | 5 Pages

Authors of short fiction always strive to communicate a message in their stories for the reader to discover. Their message makes their story memorable and it gives the reader something to take away. Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” and Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” have very comparable messages concealed behind their stories. Although these two authors share their messages with vastly different stories, the protagonists in their stories convey similar messages for the reader to uncover. The authors of both “Cathedral” and “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” use the protagonist to communicate that maintaining a stubborn mindset is human nature and it takes a significant experience to change one’s way of thinking.

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1001 Words | 5 Pages

This is when Mr. Shiflet first started to show interest in the car. “Mr. Shiflet’s pale sharp glance had already passed over everything in the yard…and moved to a shed where he saw the square rusted back of an automobile. “You ladies drive?”

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345 Words | 2 Pages

Flannery O’Connor’s The Lame Shall Enter First is a short American classic centralizing on the theme of compassion. The story’s main premise follows Sheppard, his son Norton and juvenile delinquent. The father, Sheppard, believes it is his ultimate purpose in life to help the disadvantaged, which in this case is Rufus Johnson, a fourteen-year-old boy who believes he is under the influence of Satan. Despite the fact that Norton’s mom died a year ago, Sheppard absolutely refuses to be sympathetic with his son’s grief and sees him as greedy as a result of that. When Rufus enters the scene, Sheppard sees his living with them as an opportunity for Norton to learn selfless discipline and for him to fulfill his life’s purpose.

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681 Words | 3 Pages

After gaining her trust and marrying Lucynell, Tom got what he wanted, the car. To Mr.Shiftlet the car is important because it symbolizes freedom and successes. It also represents the idea that Shiftlet has the possibility to be redeemed or ‘rise from the dead’. O’Connor wrote that when Shiftlet managed to get it started he sat in the driver’s seat and ‘he had an expression of serious modesty on his face as if he had just raised the dead.” After getting the car and going on his honeymoon Tom Shitftlet stopped by The Hot Spot and abandoned Lucynell.

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890 Words | 4 Pages

“Acelin peered out the window, she saw a moving vehicle with a menacing slowness. It was Ramsey, James locked the front door and ran to the side door to lock it, He herded everyone into the bathroom to hide. The injured women got into the

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833 Words | 4 Pages

Shiftlet tries once more to redeem himself by attempting another good deed. Along the road, he picks up a young, hitchhiking boy who ran away from home. Mr. Shiftlet knows the little boy’s decision is one that he will most likely regret in the future, so he tries to convince the boy to go back home to his mother. He consoles the boy and tells him that his mother is the second best mother in the world, and that there’s nothing sweeter in the world than a mother. But unlike the Crater’s, this little boy is not fooled by Mr. Shiftlet’s false kindness.

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451 Words | 2 Pages

Of all intelligence and intuition attributed to man, it is not enough to overcome the characteristics that will lead to the downfall of our own kind. Such characteristics take root in man and protrude out of him no matter how hard he tries to deny their presence. Man himself is aware of these characteristics and they play a part on all forms of entertainment, and fuel almost all actions made by man. In “The Pardoner’s Tale” written by Chaucer, the theme of pride and greed leading to demise is prominent.

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1031 Words | 5 Pages

"The Night Driver" is a short story by Italo Calvino (1967) that emphasize the struggles of human relations and technology in a postmodern era. The narrator, which I 've concluded is X, gets into an agreement with his girlfriend, and she tells him that she 'll go after Z, his rival. To save their relationship, X, drives through the rain at night to see her. As he is driving on the superhighway, he fancies the thought of her driving towards him in the other direction, along with other cars and even X on the superhighway. A character 's inner journey shows how much a character goes through changes –whether good or bad- in the story.

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1054 Words | 5 Pages

The narrator’s wife picks him up from the train station and brings him home. As she was

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