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The Benefits Of Southern Gothic Writing: Flannery O Connor

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The Benefit of Believing
Southern Gothic writing has been around since the 18th century. Many have written under this genre, but writers such as Flannery O’Connor have perfected it and made it popular. In Flannery O’Conner’s literary works, she gives both the characters and various events a grotesque persona in order to give an exaggerated point of view of life. She over stresses in order to show how life can be horrible if you don’t put your faith into something. Having no faith leaves one feeling baron, empty, and in tragedy. A few of O’Conner’s stories that display this theme are Wise Blood, ‘Good Country People,’ ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find,’ and ‘Greenleaf.’
In Flannery O’Conner’s novel, Wise Blood, the main character, Hazel Motes, is …show more content…

The grandmother’s characteristics regrettably make her the worst character of the whole family. While her grandchildren are annoying and sassy, she is manipulative, persistence (in a negative way), and a liar. She hears about a killer and tries to scare her child so that she can get the family vacation she dreamed of. She tells Bailey, "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is loose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn 't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that loose in it. I couldn 't answer to my conscience if I did” (pg. 454). When her son doesn’t comply, she convinces them to at least visit a plantation during their trip. She thinks she knows where she’s going, but her lie leads to the car crashing. After the wreckage, a man appears. They all think its help, but they are wrongly mistaken. When The Misfit appears, he slowly executes the grandmother’s whole family, except for her. The entire time, she speaks to him about how well he is and how there’s still time for him to change who he is. She attempts to communicate and change the mentality of The Misfit. Constantly, she tells him, "Pray, pray," the grandmother began, "pray, pray . . ." (pg.) The pressure she puts on him to embrace his religion only irritates him. Due to his loss of faith, religion, and hope, he feels no remorse. Trying to help him find his faith, “She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest” (pg.467). She is shot due to her belief and

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