A Good Man is Hard to Find and The Life You Save May Be Your Own written by Flannery OConnor - Essay Example

Outline Thesis: These stories are significant because of the questions that they persuade the reader into answering about the morality of the characters and of themselves. Characterization: The Grandmother and The Misfit for have similarities with Mr. Shiftlet because they each have certain views on evil, as well as evil tendencies that they do not completed understand. Themes: Good versus Evil Unknown actions Christianity Evil in the world in general People not understanding their own actions Plot Structure: Both stories have endings where the reader is uncertain about the paths that certain characters take. Subject matter: Similar to themes Conclusion The short stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” are both significant works by Flannery O’Connor. In each of these stories, the main characters are faced with life altering situations, where they must choose the path that they wish to take. Each of these stories also features a battle between guilt and innocence, as this guilt if often represented by the evil actions of the characters. The ideals that are set forth by Christianity are also explored, as in both narratives, certain characters who claim to be Christian, do not act in this manner. Finally, the reader is left to question many of the actions of some of the characters, as they act in an unpredictable and difficult to interpret manner when faced with choices about how to live their lives. These stories are significant because of the questions that they persuade the reader into answering about the morality of the characters and of themselves. A major similarity in these two stories can be found in the characterization of both the Grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and Mr. Shiftlet in “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”. The Grandmother is portrayed as a woman who claims to be a devoted Christian, but her actions often to not meet up with the ideologies that she claims to represent. She is a selfish woman who wishes to get her own way at any cost. She tries to use her faith to persuade the family to choose her vacation destination, even though everyone else wanted to go somewhere else. She also decides to bring the family cat along on the journey, without consulting anyone else. This ultimately leads to the car accident, which leads to the murders of the other family members. Also, even as her family was being murdered, the Grandmother appears to be more concerned with her own safety, pleading for ‘The Misfit’ to spare her life and many will be “appalled by a calculating opportunist who is capable of embracing her familys murderer, to save her own skin“ (Bandy 2). In the end, she attempts to touch her killer, possibly as a last ditch effort at saving her own life, but also possibly as a symbol of finally reaching a personal enlightenment, just moments before her death, as “critics like to interpret the moment that the grandmother reaches out her hand towards ‘The Misfit’ as a moment of grace, and thus conclude that this gesture will become an epiphany that leads The Misfit upward to God’s grace. But others would argue that the grandmother does not show any sign of repent, nor does her last gesture a touch of God’s grace"(Tsai 6). The reader is left to interpret why the Grandmother chose to reach out towards her killer, just the same way the reader is left to interpret the actions of Mr. Shiftlet. Mr. Shiftlet is an interesting character because the reader is not entirely sure how to react to him, as “we first meet him coming up the road, an out-of-town (indeed, out-of-this-world) stranger who seems to arrive at the Crater homestead literally from nowhere. True to his shifty, shiftless name and nature, he dodges Mrs. Craters questions about his origins“ (Schaum). While at first he seems like he could be genuine, some of his actions appear to be quite selfish. Much the same way as the Grandmother, he has much to gain through each of his actions. While he is not as forward as the Grandmother, he is able to manipulate the situation he is in so that he can get what he wants. The first thing he sees on the property is an old car. While the car does not run, he is quickly able to convince the old woman into paying for the parts to fix it. This manipulation starts a whole chain of events that lead to Shiftlet leaving his new bride in a diner and stealing the family car with the little money that the old lady had given him. This makes the reader question everything that Shiftlet did throughout his stay with the old woman, as he ends up benefiting in some way from all of the work that he had seemingly been doing out of kindness. At the end of the story, Shiftlet appears to have realized that he wrong these people and begins to feel guilt. This is similar to the awakening that the Grandmother had right before her death, as she was able to realize her wrongs and die with love in her heart. A theme that each of these stories share is good versus evil and the line between these two things. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, ‘The Misfit’ can be judged as an evil human being. He escapes from prison and then murders this entire family, but there could be another way of looking at this situation. ‘The Misfit’ believes that he will benefit as a result of his actions and, therefore, they could be interpreted as being good for him. His belief is that just because an action is evil for the rest of society, does not mean that it is entirely evil, since it will work out well for him, as “ ‘The Misfit’ got enjoyment from hurting others because his experience of life had shown how others found enjoyment and pleasure in hurting and harming him. St Thomas Aquinas defined all evil as mistaking or misusing the means for the end. The Misfit did exactly that. He made enjoyment and pleasure in crime an end in itself“ (Sparrow). There is more than simply the crashed car that he gets out of these murders, as he eliminate potential witnesses who have seen and recognized him, since he escaped from prison. It can be said, then, that ‘The Misfit’ “wants not only to understand the mystery of evil he feels, but also, somehow, to be justified in the face of it. he wants justice as well as knowledge, and also to be liberated from his predicament” (Desmond). In many ways, Mr. Shiftlet is similar to ‘The Misfit’, as he seems totally unaffected by what he has done to both the old woman and her daughter for the majority of the story. Each of these woman only had one another and Shiftlet gained their trust and then betrayed them. While it could be argued that Shiftlet hinted at his intentions throughout the story, his actions were still evil and he does not seem affected by them. It could be argued that Shiftlet had reason to leave Lucynell because of the stress is would bring him, as “Mr. Shiftlet, unable to bear the thought of looking after immature, unintelligent Lucynell the rest of his life, suddenly decides to abandon her there in the diner. He gives the waiter, a mere boy, money for the food and tells him Lucynell is only a hitchhiker he picked up down the road“. (Davis 66). In the end, Shiftlet’s guilt gets to him and he hurries back towards Mobile in order to find his bride, but the damage could have already been done, especially if Lucynell had awaken all alone, having never been on her own in her life, it becomes clear that “that the younger Lucynell, who is said to look like an angel of Gawd, is the only innocent person. It is interesting that although she is ‘saved’ from the two morally corrupt people in her life, she was not the one who was responsible for the change“ (Shaner). It is possible to see a chance within Shiftlet at the end of this story, as perhaps he realizes that he had finally found the love and the family that he had been missing, but he achieved this by conning these people, which cheapens the entire experience. A final aspect that both of these stories include is the idea of how people perceive evil in the world. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” ‘The Misfit’ says, “No me, I aint a good man . . . but I aint the worst in the world neither”, which shows that he recognizes evil, but also believes that there is evil in the world that is worse than him. He “is caught between absurdity and faith. he rejects belief in Christ yet he recognizes that a world in which actions and consequences cannot be made sense of leads ultimately to a world in which logical distinctions between good and evil collapse. As he says, it becomes a world in which there is ‘no pleasure but meanness’” (Desmond). This shows that even an evil murderer can be confused by the actions of people in the world, which makes it possible to see how Shiftlet make the same mistake. After Shiftlet leaves his wife at the diner, he takes off, eventually picking up a young hitchhiker. This young hitchhiker, however, is running away from home and has nothing positive to say about his mother or mothers in general. The boys comments appear to shock Shiftlet to the point where he says, “Oh Lord!… Break forth and wash the slime from this earth!" (The Life You Save May Be Your Own). This shows that Shiftlet has recognized that evil that is present in the world, including his own, and has asked for forgiveness. It should also be noted that “for OConnor the title is literal, then ironic, and ultimately mysterious, indicative of her gothic sensibility and self-proclaimed ‘working knowledge of the devil‘” (Nussbaum). These short stories say a great deal about society because they show that good and evil are present everywhere. Through the characters and themes that are explores in these stories, the reader is able to see that people who proclaim to be good, can also be evil, while those that proclaim to be evil, are not entirely evil. There is both good and evil present in everyone and each person is given time to realize this. Two of the character in these stories realize their evil actions, while one is left to question himself. The reader, after exploring these texts, is then able to question his or her own actions and decide how he or she wishes to live the rest of his or her life. Sources Bandy, Stephen C. "One of my babies: the misfit and the grandmother - in Flannery OConnors short story A Good Man Is Hard to Find". Studies in Short Fiction. Winter 1996. Viewed 13 Novembr 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2455/is_n1_v33/ai_19638483/pg_1 Davis, Evanell. "O’Connor’s Write Eye: What It Means to Be Truly Human". Abilene Christian University. Viewed 13 November 2007. http://www.acu.edu/img/assets/2292/Davis.pdf Desmond, John. "Flannery OConnors Misfit and the Mystery of Evil". Renascence. Winter 2004. Viewed 13 November 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3777/is_200401/ai_n9397988 Nussbaum, Mia. "Startling Grace". 2007. Viewed 13 November 2007. http://www.bustedhalo.com/features/2003_38faith_guides.htm OConnor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find". Viewed 13 November 2007. http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~surette/goodman.html OConnor, Flannery. "The Life You Save May Be Your Own". Viewed 13 November 2007. http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/2312/lifeyousave.htm Schaum, Melita. "Erasing Angel: The Lucifer-Trickster Figure in Flannery OConnors Short Fiction". The Southern Literary Journal. 33.1 (2000) 1-26. Viewed 13 November 2007. http://www.csi.edu/ip/englfl/faculty/cdraney/1_fall2004/engl175-c01_lit/etexts/oconnor_good-man/33.1schaum.html Shaner, Jennifer. "Flannery OConnor". Viewed 13 November 2007. http://web.uccs.edu/english339/shaner_contribution.html Sparrow, Stephen. "And the Meanest of them Sparkled Grace Versus the Glamour of Evil in A Good Man Is Hard To Find. The Flannery OConnor Repository. March 2003. Viewed 12 November 2007. http://mediaspecialist.org/ssmeanest.html Tsai, Hsiu-Chih. "Violence as the Road to Transformation: O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find". NTU Studies in Language and Literature. Number 13 (June 2004), 59-98. Viewed 13 November 2007. http://www.press.ntu.edu.tw/ejournal/Files/Studies/13/3.pdf Read More