¶ … character's attitude toward God in a piece of literature can add depth, not to mention offer the reader a greater understanding of the character's attitude and personality.
Flannery O'Connor's short story, "Greenleaf," is a good example of the reader can take a character's belief system and understand why they behave the way they do. Mrs. May, a self-centered old woman, is unable to see the good in those she does not consider her equal. Mrs. May thinks is she behaves respectfully, she is blameless in the eyes of God. She also thinks that a person's social standing is representative of their level of righteousness. These beliefs help the reader understand her attitude toward others.
Mrs. May refuses to let her sons help her, which is also reflection of her relationship with God as she insists on taking care of everything herself. Mrs. May also believes that the world operates by cause and effect. If she behaves well, good things will happen to her and those who behave like trash will reap nothing but sorrow.
That is why she is puzzled by the Greenleaf family. She has always behaved respectfully and has raised two well-educated sons. But her grown sons sponge off of her even after they have become adults and they have no respect...
They mock and taunt her; one even tells her that he wouldn't milk a cow to save your soul from hell.
Mr. Greenleaf, on the other hand, raised two successful young boys who made their mark in the
Army, married French wives and now live in an attractive duplex, working their joint farm in harmony. This doesn't make any sense to Mrs. May. By reassuring herself that "No matter where they go, they came from that," she misses the point that God does not judge a person by where they came from, but from where they are.
The Greenleaf and May have different reactions to the stray bull characterize their feelings toward life. The Greenleaf family see the bull as a force of
nature that cannot be contained, and therefore one needs to just move over and provide room for it as a fellow member of God's creation. Mrs. May on the other hand, is obsessed with controlling it because she is obsessed with the idea of imposing her will onto every aspect of her life. In fact, trying to control a force so much bigger and so much more powerful than she is becomes her undoing.
Mrs. May thinks of her life as progressing in a linear fashion. Her husband died and left her the dairy farm and when she dies, she will pass it on to her sons. She puts all of her
energy into the farm because, in her view, legitimate gain comes only from hard work. The soil produces crops because she wants it so. Yet no matter how much she does, things always seem to…
