Faulkner & F. O'Connor the

Faulkner & F. O'Connor The Fall of the High and Mighty Individual': Individual vs. Society in William Faulkner's a Rose for Emily and Flannery O'Connor's Good Country People Towards the mid-20th century, society was in a state where structural changes were in the process of coming full circle, wherein a new order finally emerged to dominate all of societies in the world.

This was the social state that writers William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor recognized in their literary works, at the time "A Rose for Emily" (1930) and "Good Country People" (1955) were written and published. Both short stories carried the theme of 'the fall of the high and mighty individual,' as represented by the main characters Emily and Joy/Hulga. The following discussion probes into this theme through a comparative analysis.

The author posits that both stories carried with it the fall of the highly moral and intellectual individual as their dominant theme. This theme is supported by three elements of fiction: plot structure, characters, and point-of-view (POV). In this paper, 'the fall' is illustrated in two ways: first, through Emily's fall into moral degeneration as perceived by her community, and second, Joy/Hulga's fall from idealism to disillusionment.

Their fall is compared in the behavior of the main characters and their relationship with their societies, and is contrasted by the differences in the stories' plot structures and points-of-view. The fall' is the result of the friction between the resisting individual and the changing society. In the short stories, Emily and Joy/Hulga were the individuals whose morality and ideals were challenged by the society, which has conformed to the changes that occurred around it in the years that passed since the rise of industrialization.

In the case of Emily, her resistance to conform to the changing beliefs and values in her community led to her isolation and being the center of the community's speculations and intrigues. Joy/Hulga, meanwhile, believed herself to be a worldly individual, not believing in the concept of God.

However, she encountered her 'fall' in Manley Pointer, whose facade as a devout Christian and Bible salesman made her expose him to her vulnerabilities, only to find out that he is more worldly than her -- that, she, in fact, was not as worldly and unbelieving in morality and religion as she would like to believe herself to be. These unfortunate realizations and endings in the short stories are supported by the behavior of the main characters, both onto themselves and to their societies.

Emily was portrayed as a woman who, because of her lineage and her family's relative influence to the town, considered herself as self-reliant, autonomous, and different to her community. Her community validated this self-perception, through their explicitly expressed animosity towards her. This animosity was shown in the way they 'treated' her throughout the story: a subject of speculation and sometimes, wonder; an individual to be gossiped upon and talked about.

The role she played in her community was best summed at the start of the story: "[w]hen Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house..." (par. 1). Similar to Emily's character, Joy/Hulga behaved antagonistically towards people in general, and more particularly, towards her mother, Mrs. Hopewell.

In the story, she acted and believed herself to be a worldly person, who is more in touch with her reality than her mother, who she also believed to be gullible and impressionable, especially towards the 'good country people' -- people like Mrs. Freeman and Manley Pointer.

Joy/Hulga is a well-educated woman, and O'Connor characterized her as a woman who is confident, cannot be wrong with her beliefs and values, and can see through other people because, with her education and painful experience in life, she was more 'enlightened' and knows more about the harsh realities of life.

But the friction between her and her mother translated also to the society, to the 'good country people.' The good country people, represented by Manley Pointer, turned against her, victimizing her by using her own ideals and beliefs. Manley took advantage of her 'weakness,' being able to see through her tough self, knowing that within her, there is a part of her that wanted attention and love without pity.

O'Connor may have portrayed Manley to be truly taken by Joy/Hulga's sulkiness and believed her to be like him, the kind of 'good country person' who knew and experienced the harshness of life. This can be verified in his remark after he 'revealed' himself to Joy/Hulga, exclaiming to her, "[w]hat's the matter with you all of a sudden? You just a while ago said you didn't believe in nothing. I thought you was some girl!" (par. 139).

Though Emily and Joy/Hulga shared the same fate (both experienced 'the fall') and were characterized as abrasive individuals towards their society, Faulkner and O'Connor used fictional elements differently to illustrate each character's downfall. The plot structure, for one, was developed differently. O'Connor, on one hand, chose to show his use of irony -- the worldly Joy/Hulga being played and fooled by the worldlier Pointer -- at the end of the story, giving it a surprising ending.

Faulkner, on the other hand, explicitly stated Emily's end at the start of the story, and worked towards establishing the suspense and surprising demise of another character in the story: Homer Barron. Thus, focusing on Emily's character per se, Faulkner used an inverted structure to develop the plot of the story, but sought to balance this inverted structure by developing a regularly structured story plot for Homer's character.

The third fictional element that is used to support the theme of the downfall of the characters Emily and Joy/Hulga is the point-of-view (POV). POV is powerfully used in the stories as it helped strengthen the claim that there was friction between the main character and her society. It was through POV that the readers/audience realized the friction that existed between Emily and her town, as illustrated in the antagonistic tone of the.