ipl-logo

Symbolism In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

1021 Words5 Pages

In A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor, we are taken on a road trip with a family consisting of a mother, father, grandmother, and three children. The author first uses the saying "a good man is hard to find" while the family is at a diner and the grandmother and the owner, Red Sammy, are discussing how the times had changed and that you can no longer trust people or leave your doors unlocked. “Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more" (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012). This story "wrestles with questions of good and evil and the possibility of divine grace" (Sustana, 2017). I believe what they were inferring was that honest men no longer existed. …show more content…

When Dee returned her mother was expecting her to be the same person that "wanted nice things" (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 346). I pictured Dee when described by her mother as beautiful, smart, outgoing, and ambitious. Dee was the opposite of her sister who I pictured also from her mother's description as not attractive and not too bright. Dee returns and now has an understanding that these items are a part of her family's history and culture. Each item was handmade by a family member that was no longer living. The wooden bench by her father, the butter churn by her uncle, and the quilts by her aunt and grandmother. Having been made by them also gives them sentimental value. To Dee's mother, it's just a bench, a butter churn, and a quilt. I believe that the quilts were of the most value to Dee because they were made from various clothing that her grandparent had worn. Dee was making a transition to gain knowledge of herself and her family by reconnecting to her African roots. She had changed her name and even her dress attire. Dee wanted to make them understand that the items were a part of their heritage, but there was not any room for understanding in the minds of her mother or sister. "Dee collects objects for their symbolic meaning and visual beauty, rather than for their utility" (Churchill, 017). But what Dee does not understand is that these items were made for …show more content…

She tried and tried to free her dress but when one piece was released, another piece was caught, "her skirts were full and long"(Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 388). The second time Phoenix might have abandoned her mission was when she crossed the river over the log and decided to take a break. She is sitting on the ground and imagining a little boy bringing her a slice of cake. "But when she went to take it there was just her own hand in the air" (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 388). A mixture of her age and exhaustion made Phoenix hallucinate. The third instance that Phoenix might have abandoned her mission was the time when the black dog appeared. Phoenix was lying on her back and had what she called a dream. "A dream visited her, and she reached her hand up, but nothing reached down and gave her a pull" Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 390). A hunter then came along and she was brought back to reality. The hunter even tried to tell her to go back home, but she was determined to make it to her destination. The symbol of a phoenix represents a creature that dies but is recreated again and again, therefore a symbol of longevity. "That Phoenix shares a name with such a creature reflects her indefatigable nature, her constant striving towards her goal, as well as her unflagging optimism and high spirits" (Goodman,

Show More
Related
622 Words | 3 Pages

Dee (Wangero) tries to convince her mother that the quilts are much too important to be used, saying, “But they’re priceless!” She then attempts to state that she would take amazing care and would hang the quilts, ‘...as if it were the only thing you could do with quilts.’ Here, she tries to use the persuasive mood of concern, trying to draw concern out of her mother for how the quilts should be cared for. Dee (Wangero) knows that her mother cares about the quilts and wants the best for them, but they have clashing views on how that happens, and Dee (Wangero) tries to tip her mother toward her perspective through appealing to her sense of worry on what could happen to the quilts since they seem to be the only connection presented to their

Read More
650 Words | 3 Pages

But when she went to take it there was just her own hand in the air” Phoenix obviously has issues when it comes to her mind. She imagines ridiculous scenarios and believes that they are real. Luckily, these mental problems do not cause her to give up on herself. Additionally, Welty writes, “At last there came a flicker and then a flame of comprehension across her face, and she spoke.

Read More
2209 Words | 9 Pages

“Dee” does not share in the recognition and reverence of their culture even though her mother does. She describes this type of culture as a fragile heritage and she points out the aspect of clothing and design as a reason. She considers the dress code by her grandfather and mother an outdated mode of living. Dee wants to go by the current standards of life and she cannot have a second thought about this. Being an African American she comes out strongly to condemn the oppression that the blacks underwent in the hands of the whites.

Read More
271 Words | 2 Pages

Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” illustrates Dee’s struggle for identity by placing her quest for a new identity against her family’s desire for maintaining culture and heritage. In the beginning, the narrator, who is the mother of Dee, mentions some details about Dee; how she “...wanted nice things… She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts… At sixteen, she had a style of her own: and (she) knew what style was.” Providing evidence to the thesis, she was obviously trying exceptionally hard to find for herself a sense of identity. She wanted items her family couldn’t afford, so she worked hard to gain these, and she found a sense of identity from them, but it also pushed her farther away from her family.

Read More
1726 Words | 7 Pages

It is not surprising Phoenix is unfazed by names she is called. One is even humored by Phoenix’s mannerisms in handling the white people she encounters on her journey. These white people only assume they have an advantage over this old black woman. James Roberts Saunders states in his short story criticism, “there have been solitary women, black and oppressed though they might have been, who were rightfully declared as mothers to a world”. Phoenix Jackson possesses these motherly qualities and is only concerned with completing her original task of obtaining medicine from town for her

Read More
411 Words | 2 Pages

Dee in Everyday Use followed the path of a new culture, which is expressed by the author with clothing and changing of her name. “A dress so loud it hurts my eyes,” (pg 61) shows that her mother is not accustom to such bright colors on a dress, they are new to her. The dress symbolizes Dee’s new culture’s fashion to

Read More
636 Words | 3 Pages

Dee doesn’t truly know what her culture represents, but instead she tries to use everything from college to apply to everyday life. Dee never appreciated her roots as a child, and she still don’t. Mama and Maggie used the churnand dasher daily with care, and all Dee wants to do with the churn and dasher is “think of something artistic to do with it” ( Walker 273.) She sees the churn as a project she can work on; on the other hand Mama and Maggie see it as a churn with a lot of meaning behind it. Maggie and Mama cherish the handmade quilts that were made by Grandma Dee.

Read More
1032 Words | 5 Pages

This shows, unlike her sister Maggie, Dee’s perception of the quilts are strictly aesthetic and artistic pieces that reflect African Heritage. Dee never considers they may represent oppression themselves and it makes her seem as though she wants them solely just to show off. In addition, Ross goes on to state, “Her admiration for them now seems to reflect a cultural trend toward valuing handmade objects, rather than any sincere interest in her “heritage.” After all, when she was offered a quilt before she went away to college, she rejected it as “old-fashioned, out of style” (Ross 1-2).

Read More
1276 Words | 6 Pages

Dee has always been ashamed of her African culture and family. Dee would prefer that her mother and sister look different and that her home would be nicer. Her mother always knew how Dee felt about her, “My daughter would want me to be a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. But that is a mistake” (par. 6). Dee has returned from college to visit her family, but with a different attitude.

Read More
1149 Words | 5 Pages

This new outlook on her life caused Dee to place different values on the items with which she had grown up. She wanted to take the items as things to put on display like art hanging on a wall. Dee even wanted the cherished quilts to “hang them” (Walker, 1973) instead of using them as blankets. As she saw it, to use the quilts for their original purpose would destroy them, or as she said, “Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they 'd be in rags” (Walker, 1973).

Read More
629 Words | 3 Pages

With determined ambitions and education resulted in a lack of sensibility in heritage, history, and self identity, which only family can implement. Dee presents herself almost as a weird, intimidating individual foreign to what her family has ever known. The conflict that Mama and Maggie are confronted with is that Dee is does not care about anything but herself. When being rejected to have possession of the quilts Dee stated “But they’re priceless! She was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper.”.

Read More
592 Words | 3 Pages

SAN FRANCISCO — With the roll out of its new music streaming and Internet-based radio services this month, Apple is getting into the industry in an exceedingly a lot of deeper method. Yet together with the new business opportunities the corporate noninheritable with Beats Music, Apple additionally faces new competitive pressures. These forces area unit totally different than those it faces from fellow smartphone and pill manufacturers like Samsung physics. Those economic process embody the stress of wizard musicians — and not simply Taylor Swift.

Read More
721 Words | 3 Pages

Dee is a girl who lived with her mom and her sister Maggie, but she wasn’t like them at all, she was different than her sister and her mother. Mama was collecting money to take Dee to school in Augusta. Dee liked to be fashionable, she always wanted nice things. Dee changed allot in the story, she changed after she went to study in school.

Read More
1561 Words | 7 Pages

(Walker 721) Dee can’t understand the true meaning and significance of her name, passed along through four generations; therefore she doesn’t understand the significance of the quilts. The quilts are a symbol of pride and struggle and these objects have a value that Dee will never

Read More
1026 Words | 5 Pages

These items are part of Maggie’s wedding present, and she is connected and grounded to the part of herself and her family heritage which created them. Maggie and Dee are also alike in their tempers, although it takes much more to get Maggie angry than Dee. Dee is used to being deferred to and getting what she wants. She is beautiful and smart, and she takes matters into her own hands when they are not going her way (take the burning of the house she hated which scarred Maggie for instance). Maggie is not used to getting her way since her sister was always in the spotlight.

Read More

More about Symbolism In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Related Topics

Open Document