“Greenleaf” Literary Analysis Flannery O’Connor’s “Greenleaf,” is a story of a woman’s struggle in a man’s world. In the story, the author uses many different techniques to convey the woman’s struggle, but the most prominent, is the use of plot. The plot is used to tell how her worker disrespects her, both of her sons don’t want to help her on their family farm, and her neighbor’s and their bull also disrespect her. Mrs. May’s worker, Mr. Greenleaf, has many responsibilities that Mrs. May has given him on the farm, that he does not follow through on, that ends up affecting Mrs. May in her everyday life. The first time that Mr. Greenleaf disrespects Mrs. May is in the opening scene where Mrs. May hears the neighbor’s bull eating through her yard and figures out that “Mr. Greenleaf had left the lane gate open,” which had let the bull onto her property. In this scene, the author uses the plot to …show more content…
May are her neighbors (Mr. Greenleaf’s sons) who own the bull. Throughout the plot, the bull becomes quite a hassle and Mrs. May becomes sick of having to watch the bull and limit its destruction on her property. Mrs. May contacts her neighbors with a note that said, “I’m Mrs. May. Their bull is on my place and I want him off today. You can tell them I’m furious about it.” But the neighbors ignore her plea. The author includes this in the story because it clearly shows how disrespectful Mrs. May’s neighbors are to her that they let their bull stay on her property, and do not care about how Mrs. May feels about having to keep the bull. In Flannery O’Connor’s “Greenleaf,” the story of a woman’s struggles in a man’s world is shown by all of the men in the story ignoring, and disrespecting Mrs. May’s thoughts and directions. Their disrespect had a transformative effect on Mrs. May’s life, making it an unnecessary struggle. You can only wonder what Mrs. May’s life could’ve been if only Mr. Greenleaf, or her neighbor’s, respected