How Does Flannery O Connor Use Physiognomy

Flannery O’Connor is an American Southern Gothic author who is well known for her novels and short stories. As an American Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor often includes physiognomy, which is the art of judging character based on physical characteristics, within her works. Two of her short stories in particular, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” and “Good Country People,” use physiognomy to further their respective themes. Although both Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” and “Good Country People” exhibit physiognomy to further their overall themes, the usage in “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” is far more effective for a variety of reasons at proving its theme of things are as they seem to be.
For starters,

Because the characters in this story are described in more detail than the characters in “Good Country People” it is reasonable to believe that there is also more physiognomy that can be used to further

For example, the cross that Shiftlet makes with his body is an allusion to Jesus because Jesus died on the cross, and like Jesus, as soon as Shiftlet arrives, he begins to resurrect parts of the farm that the Crater’s live on. The morning after he arrives he begins to fix the roof on the garden house and by the time he has stayed there a week he “had patched the front and back steps, built a new hog pen, restored a fence, and taught Lucynell, who was completely deaf and had never said a word in her life, to say the word ‘bird.’” which furthers the allusion in this story (O’Connor). Because the cross he forms is crooked, however, he cannot be an entirely good person and this is fully revealed later on in the story when he abandons his sleeping wife in a restaurant and steals her mother’s car. The cross he forms is clearly symbolic and gives the reader a good picture of what will happen much further on in the story. “Good Country People” does have some symbolism but it is less clearly indicative of what will happen later on in the story. The artificial leg that Hulga “was as sensitive about the artificial leg as a peacock about his tail” symbolizes her vulnerability and her dependence on things despite what she may think, but from this it would be nearly impossible to guess that Manley was