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¶ … CI realized a finalizing image stories ( authors) interrelate ( final image ) works focus . You asked interrelate works referred syllabus-based reading: glancing references materials authors assigned reading syllabus; reference works author: short stories, plays, poetry, essays, graphic stories, comicstrips, photographs, moving pictures (created authors photojournalists, movie directors final phase respective, correlatable, works art).

The purpose of the present paper is to discuss the themes presented in two short stories, namely "A good man is hard to find" by Flannery O'Connor and in "Hands" by Sherwood Anderson. In order to have a better understanding of the concepts which these authors deal with we will also be referring to other short stories written by each of them. The social standards almost crush the individuals' true identity. There is a lack of real communication in people's lives. The divine manifests itself even in the grotesque. The tragic destiny of the characters often derives from their incapacity to know themselves, to express themselves and to make rational choices.

The social standards almost crush the individuals' true identity.. "A good man is hard to find" is the key message in the short story with the same name, yet the various meanings that the text reveals are very profound. The authors makes the reader wonder what being good actually means. The "bad" character in the story is called Misfit and reading between the lines we might understand that he is actually unfit for the social standards defining ethics and morality at the time.

Right from the beginning of the story, two characters are powerfully designed. One is the grandmother, the religious woman who loves her family and who is worried a bout a possible encounter with a bandit who had been going around the country shooting people. The woman mistakes a place for another and takes the family there. The cat that she had brought in the car without telling the others scares the driver ad they have an accident. The people who stop to "help" them are actually the group who traveled with the man that she feared so much. From a certain point-of-view one could state that it was the old woman who led the family to its terrible ending, although the crimes were not performed by her.

The description of the everyday life of this family seems to reveal the alck of real communication between its members ad also the vanity and selfishness which separates them. The grandmother realized that the place she was taking them to was the wrong one, yet she did not say anything for fear of being punished by her son. In addition, she brought the cat along without telling anyone, again fro fear of being told off. Yet these facts are united in a chain which leads the family to their ending.

The grandmother is a very religious person. She seems to know exactly what is good and what is evil. In the confrontation between her and Misfit, she is convinced that the bandit is the incarnation of evil, while she is the symbol of good. However, while the bandit's companions are exterminating her family, the old woman has the chance to talk to the man who would soon kill her and make some personal considerations upon the definitions of good and evil. The denouement of the story might be shocking, but what actually happens is that the grandmother questions the definition of her main values and realizes ad that it was imposed by the social standards. She declares that the man who killed her family is a good one and she also declares her love for him right before being killed.

We realize that there is a strong change of paradigm involved. Throughout the story the old grandmother often declares that "a good man is hard to find" and in the end she finds him in the figure of the person whom she considered to be the absolute evil. From the manner in which she attributes the adjective "good" to people we realize that "good" was meant t define someone who did not perform critical thinking and who had blind faith in god (even if he did not know why). O'Connor teaches us that blind faith in itself is worthless. Its value derives from the manner in which the Christian teachings are applied. When she meets Misfit the woman calls him "good" repeatedly in order to convince him to redeem, to find the real nature inside him (which she supposes is good). On the other had she wishes to convince herself that Misfit is good by nature so that she can hope for salvation. Nevertheless, the repetition of the term and its strong opposition to the action makes it loose its meaning. The social persona of the grandmother is deconstructed. She realizes that a person is not "good" is he or she adheres to the same social values as she does. All her assumptions about the Misfit are proven to be incorrect. I the end a real process of communication is installed and the woman understands that he is a violet person who seeks to be mean to the others.

The murder of the grandmother is a key scene. Right before the shooting she realizes that the man was evil, yet she finds the power to forgive him. Misfit on the one hand would declare that life offers him no pleasures. Before this episode he would declare that meanness was a source of pleasure for him. Therefore, the ending of the short story suggests there is a possibility for him to change what he is.

In "Hands" the plot is not as strong, yet the meaning transmitted by the short story is just as powerful. The grotesque of the situation is similar to the one in the previously discussed story. The main character is defined through the metaphor of his hands. The author declares that his hands are very expressive and that the people appreciate him for them. The hands are symbol of creation, of action. Therefore, at the beginning of the story the description suggests that the main character is in a certain way, a noble one.

The man is nevertheless too nervous in order to make us believe that the gestures and expressions of his hands are the result of a creative process. On the contrary, they seem to be the expression of a troubled mind. The exaggerated reaction that the man has after having touched the face of a boy makes us realize he may be hiding something. In fact, his "terrible" secret is that he is a homosexual. Anderson shows how powerful the social pressures ca be in imposing identities and life styles. The man had been banished from another town where his passion for people of the same sex had come out in the open. While he did not do ay harm to the boys to whom he taught, the locals almost kill him telling him repeatedly "to keep his hands for himself." This makes him afraid of his own hands, as if they were the cause of his true nature. He is crushed by the society values and lives alone and in constant fear. He knows that the hands are not the real problem, yet he is too afraid to admit it. This prevents him from being happy and from leading a normal life. In fact he looks as if he were sixty when he is only forty. His physical appearance, his life style and the extreme fear which overwhelms him to the point of spiritual paralysis make the character grotesque. He is terribly alone and unable to communicate with anyone. In the absence of communication he can build no relationship and is left with no alternative than that of loneliness and despair.

Nevertheless, in the final part of the story his figure is portrayed as having a relevant spiritual and religious connotation. The grotesque figure is assimilated with the one of a saint. Naturally some of the questions which come to mind refer to the very nature of the Christian values. The society of the time did not accept homosexuality. Yet it allowed for individuals to repress their own personality and live alone, on the brink of madness. This obviously was not fair and the trembling hands of Wing are a symbol of his induced spiritual impotence and crisis. The tragic destiny of the character derives from the incapacity to express himself. He suspects what his real nature is, but he is too afraid to manifest it. The comparison with the saint figure is actually based on his suffering.

The same themes and similar concepts can be found in other short stories. Let us take for example, "The egg" by Anderson. The characters want to overcome their own condition and become rich, acquiring an important social status. However, this desire doe sot come from themselves. They are influenced by the life styles models that society describes as being most appealing. They set out to do business, although they are not fit for what they do. The egg ought to be the symbol of potentiality, of birth, of hope. In the story however, the egg is filled with a tragic feeling and becomes a symbol of failure.

The failure of the chicken farm and of the restaurant don't derive from the lack of dedication, as the characters are very hard working. The fact that they do not decide for themselves, but take up things which they have seen other people doing prevent them from achieving success. The creatures which come out of the eggs having body deformities are also symbols . They suggest that things are deformed, that the perception that the characters have of the world are distorted. The strong efforts which the family puts in order to achieve success and their failure makes them appear sort of grotesque. When the father tries to perform tricks with the eggs but fails, going up to the room with the intention of breaking the egg (symbolically renouncing the choice he had made before), the readers see him burst into tears, demonstrating his frailty.

The lack of communication between the spouses also contributes to the dramatic dimension of the situation. The wife decides for herself that they ought to become rich, that they should open a restaurant, etc. None of the characters asks himself what is it that he would actually like to do. In this manner, they become prisoners of their own destiny, unable of taking rational, balanced decisions that would make them happy.

In "Unlighted lamps," the lack of communication between father and daughter, as well as the social pressures mark the destinies of two people in a tragic manner. The girl grew up without a mother and in the absence of any manifestation of affection from her father. At the thought of his death she dreams about what it would be like to be free. The father on the other hand realizes that he had been too cold with the girl and decides that it is time for him to change things. The fact that he dies before he has the possibility to do it adds to the tragic dimension of the story. Just like in the other texts, the sacred manifests itself in extreme situations converting the characters. Both the father and the daughter have had their lives and the communication between them blocked by the absence of the mother. The father never had the courage to get her back or to hate her for having left. The daughter on the other hand knew more from the town people's gossip than from her father himself. Trapped in the a mechanism in which they obeyed the rules and values imposed by society, none of them was really happy or realized his true self. The unlighted lamps are a metaphor for the truth which remains hidden. The girl does not light up the lamps because she does not have courage to make light upon the situation. She does not want to see nor to accept the truth, because it is very painful. Yet, she remains a prisoner of her own destiny because she is not strong enough in order to accept the truth. The fact that she remains paralyzed on the chair as she witnesses her father die is a symbolic gesture. She does not have the power to change things, but remains rather passive, a prisoner of her own fears and emotions.

The same happens in "Senility" or in "The man in the brown coat," two short stories by Anderson. All of the characters are unable to escape their condition. The grandmother in "A good man is hard to find" has the opportunity to change. She is given the chance to see the truth, but the price she pays is her ow life. In the other stories, the characters remain alive, but they all have tragic destinies which prevent them from manifesting their true nature and communicating with the others.

In "Senility" the main character makes an almost nonsensical monologue in which he repeats the same things over and over. The author's intention is to be interpreted from a symbolic point-of-view. His intention is to underline the fact that senility (as a metaphor for decay or spiritual death ) is the consequence of not having the courage to face the truth. People are too weak to see who they really are and to express that essence in a free manner. This makes them slaves of the society, robots who believe what the others believe and behave just like they are told to. The absence of communication and the lack of freedom are key elements contributing to the creation of tragic destinies. The society presses the individual to remain trapped and hidden inside himself. This is why the man in the brown coat declares that he can not shake himself out of himself, nor can he come out of his coat.

The strength of the social pressures sometimes leads to the impossibility of communication. This often happens in the cases where people belonging to different races are involved. A relevant example in this regard is represented by the short story "The geranium" by Flannery O'Connor. The white ma and the black one are separated by the lack of communication, yet this occurs as a consequence of the social pressures. The white can not open himself towards the black because society does not accept it. The main character does not have the courage to be himself. Under these circumstances he is unable to change his present life, a strong manifestation of his past. Going back to the roots is an attempt to change all this, to find internal balance that would allow for the taking of rational decisions for the future. Instead, the character remains trapped in the present and is compelled to acknowledge his failure both at personal and social level.

In "The Train" the main character and hero of the story also goes back to the roots. However, the journey on the train is more important than actually arriving to destination. The train is the metaphor of the spiritual journey through which one seeks to find the truth about himself.