ipl-logo

How Does O Connor Use The Southern Gothic Genre

440 Words2 Pages

The Southern Gothic Genre can be described as fictional stories written about people with disturbed personalities and macabre situations. Several traits make up this genre, a few of them are, unrequited love, being an outsider, and good vs. evil. This genre does not deal with the supernatural, although it does deal with disturbed people with unusual personalities. In the short story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, Flannery O'Connor uses the Southern Gothic genre. This story was written in 1953. O’Connor uses the theme Good vs. Evil to describe when the Grandmother and the Misfit are arguing. The Misfit has just broken out of prison and is going around killing people. When the grandmother tells Bailey to take a detour, they end up flipping the car and the Misfit drives up with some of his friends. The Misfit kills the Grandmother and leaves the family running in the woods. O’Connor also uses the theme of Social Class to show the Southern Gothic Genre. The Grandmother uses the title of “a lady” to try to convince the Misfit not to kill her. …show more content…

“The Possibility of Evil” was written in 1965. In the story, Shirley Jackson uses the theme of being an outsider. The theme is used when she writes about “Miss Strangeworth”. “Miss Strangeworth” believes that it is her duty to protect the town and keep all of the evil out, but she really does not know anything about what is going on in her town, she just wants people to think that she does. Jackson also uses the theme of violence in the short story. When “Miss Strangeworth” sees that the baby next door is acting a little slow she sends the parents a letter about it, but in return she gets a letter saying to look at her rose garden and it is all torn up and in

Show More
Related

Evangelism In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

832 Words | 4 Pages

Characters serve as the metaphorical foundation upon which a story is written. In fact, the personalities of characters often reveal the outcome of a story’s plot before the author explicitly states it. In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the self-indulgent grandmother portrays the outcome of her attempted evangelism through her sanctimonious nature. Through her illegitimate Christian appearance based on deceit and self-elevation, her failed attempt to persuade the Misfit can be attributed to her hypocritical personality.

Read More

Southern Gothic Elements In Fried Green Tomatoes

543 Words | 3 Pages

Southern Gothic Lit, it is a sub-genre of the gothic style, meaning this type of literature is supported by supernatural activities or abnormal occasions to guide the storyline. This subgenre is unique to American literature. Southern Gothic literature is important due to the fact that not only does it give the viewer a sense of shock and suspense it also gives the reader a greater surprise when the plot is uncovered. Southern Gothic Literature also demonstrates grotesque features written in many novels. Applying Southern Gothic literature elements onto the movie “Fried Green Tomatoes” can be seen in multiple occasions.

Read More

Compare And Contrast Good Man Is Hard To Find

255 Words | 2 Pages

In a "Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O 'Connor, the contrast of good and evil is not as evident as it appears on the surface. The road that the family in the story travels symbolizes good up until the point the grandmother all but forces the family to make a detour onto a dirt road that leads to their demise. She is the unlikely antagonist in the story. A serial killer named, The Misfit, is the protagonist despite his homicidal actions. Both characters in the story help to illustrate how a relationship with God is perceived good and sacrilegious behavior is perceived evil.

Read More

A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

981 Words | 4 Pages

O’Connor implements details to convey that the Misfit was positively affected by the Grandmother. Firstly, the Misfit revaluates the meaning of his life. Before

Read More

Flannery O Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find

1142 Words | 5 Pages

Her final act towards the Misfit was not out of charity, but in attempt to save herself. Set in the South in the 1950s, the grandmother dutily satisfied the stereotypes that blossomed within her generation. She speaks of the older days, when children were more respectful, and good men were easier to find. However, she never expresses what defines a good man, which suggests her unsteady moral foundation. The grandmother also explicitly articulates the racism that was unfortunately common in the South, ironically prevalent in the religious and upper middle class circles like the ones she belonged to.

Read More

Analysis Of A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

1371 Words | 6 Pages

In the 1953 short story titled “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, readers are given a glimpse of what the end of the story may look like through use of foreshadowing, symbolism, and other literary techniques. Although the story looks to be an innocent story of a family who travels to Florida for vacation at the start of it, readers soon find out that the story has a darker twist to it. This family trip turns violent and this gruesome ending can easily represent the violence taking place in America during the time this story was written by O’Connor and even today. The short story starts off with a family of six- parents, a grandmother, and three children-

Read More

A Good Man Is Hard To Find Psychopath Analysis

1097 Words | 5 Pages

The grotesque psychopathic nature of the characters in Flannery O’Connor’s, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” ironically shows how a good man does not truly exist through the revelation and proclamation of what characteristics a good man possess. In the story The Misfit shows characteristics of a psychopath by escaping prison and killing an innocent family. However, The Misfit isn’t the only character in the short story to show psychopathic tendencies. The grandma also shows some characteristics of a psychopath because she does not care or show remorse for her family who was brutally murdered

Read More

A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

870 Words | 4 Pages

Flannery O’Connor, an American short story writer, grapples with the ethical dilemma of good versus evil and its relation to moral beliefs in most of her works. Most notably, in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Bailey, June Star, John Wesley, the grandmother, and the mother are killed by The Misfit, an escaped criminal, in search of a plantation. Being the last family member alive, the grandmother struggles to find her moral compass while facing the Misfit. She explains her belief in Christian values to escape death. However, the Misfit finds her moral justification superficial, ultimately murdering the grandmother for her lack of moral fortitude during her face with death.

Read More

Eudora Welty And Susan Donaldson: Female Characters In Southern Gothic Literature

753 Words | 4 Pages

Literature is defined as written works that hold a certain amount of merit. It takes form in different genres. In “Making a Spectacle: Welty, Faulkner, and Sothern gothic” the author, Susan Donaldson, mainly focuses on southern gothic literature and Southern Gothic authors. In her article Donaldson talks about female characters in Southern Gothic literature, as presented in the works of famous authors such as Eudora Welty and William Faulkner. The author gives specific examples of how female character are portrayed in Southern Gothic literature.

Read More

Gothic Setting In Truman Capote's Short Stories

338 Words | 2 Pages

Capote focuses several of his stories on the south,so naturally the southern gothic is very apparent throughout most of his texts; however, even some of his stories that do not take place in the south are reflections of the southern gothic. What comes with southern gothic is something that is entirely essential to the plot -- the gothic setting. Gothic settings can take many shapes, but as we have seen, they are usually dark, dreary, menacing places filled with dilapidated houses that are generally unwelcoming in one way or another. What the reader can count on coming from these settings is a character who shares qualities of the grotesque.

Read More

Theme Of Outsiders In To Kill A Mockingbird

1547 Words | 7 Pages

Outsiders are not always obvious, and it is a part of growing up and learning everywhere. The Southern Gothic genre is meant to tell narratives of the south with a hint of creepiness to add to the overall message of it. The genre evokes many emotions through the numerous messages given through all forms of literature. It still has power today because if the authentic stories and morals it gives. Violence, imprisonment, amd outsiders are all negative aspects of the south, but it does not take an ample amount of labor to make it positive and learn from

Read More

Gothic Characteristics In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

874 Words | 4 Pages

When defining the southern gothic genre, it 's the genre that is fixated on the grotesque and about the tension between the realistic and the supernatural. Some of the characteristics include alienation, decayed settings, and more. There are more elements that display this genre, and it 's all shown in the story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. Within this story, it covers many of the characteristics that we see in southern gothic stories. In A Good Man is Hard to Find, we are introduced to one of the first main characteristic of a southern gothic story; a decayed setting.

Read More

Violence In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

1393 Words | 6 Pages

In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor creates a story where the roles of good and evil blend together. In the short story, a family in the rural South gets caught up with a criminal named the Misfit after their wreck and they end up getting murdered. The clash between the grandmother and the Misfit highlights the religious aspects of the story and also O’Connor’s beliefs. Her stylistic traits of violence, distortion, and religion are used to convey a corrupt world that needs salvation. O’Connor’s trait of violence is used throughout to reveal the corrupt and criminal world that emanates the need for salvation.

Read More

Symbolism In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

1254 Words | 6 Pages

In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” she uses writing skills such as symbolism and imagery to get across her different themes to the reader’s with plenty of room for self-interpretation. Though O’Connor’s work could be defined as cynical, she does an excellent job of writing in the third person with her uncomplicated structure of sentences leaving plenty of room for her character 's thoughts, feelings, and actions to get across the realism of our world. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is a battle between a grandmother with a rather artificial sense of goodness, and a criminal who symbolizes evil. The grandmother treats goodness as having good manners, and coming from a family of higher class, but at the end of the story comes to

Read More

Southern Gothic Elements In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

844 Words | 4 Pages

Most of the characters have broken personalities which are damaged and delusional. People, places, and events in Southern Gothic literature seem to be ordinary at first, but in the end, they reveal to be odd, disturbing and sometimes very gruesome. "A good man is Hard to Find" is a horrific tale about

Read More

More about How Does O Connor Use The Southern Gothic Genre

Related Topics

Open Document