Flannery O'Conner

4 Pages 1004 Words

Flannery O’Connor’s works are influenced by her real life. She was a deeply religious woman who also had a disease called Lupus, which actually ended her life at a young age of 39. I think she displayed her own traits in the stories she wrote in each story there was a main character who was either extremely religious or had some kind of medical ailment.

"A Good Man Is Hard To Find"

This story involves a family on a trip to Florida to visit relatives. The family consists of a mother, father, son, daughter, baby and a grandmother. The parents don't really pay attention to the babbling old grandmother; their values seem to be extremely different than hers. The grandmother has a strong southern heritage. Even the way, in which she dresses, she wants everyone to know that she's a lady. I think her values represent some of the values of O’Connor. The grandmother had her son take a detour to show the whole family a plantation she had once visited as a child. Once they were on their way she suddenly remembered that it was in an entirely different state! She got so embarrassed she jumped up knocked over the cat carrier, the cat jumped on her son's shoulder (who was driving) and they ended up in a ditch. When someone finally stopped to help, the grandmother went on and on about how familiar he looked. When she discovered that it was The Misfit all hell broke loose. She single-handedly was responsible for the death of her entire family. This is the part of the story was where all the religion came into play. The Misfit represents evil and I noted how O’Connor capitalized "The Misfit" every time like you would capitalize
God. At one point he compares himself to Christ and she said, "Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead". (O’Connor, 459) He thinks that himself and Christ were both punished for crimes they didn't commit. The only problem I saw was that Christ accepted death for the sins of all people whereas The Misfit...