Comparative analysis of Cathedral and A Good Man is Hard to Find

¶ … Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor and "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver

Authors often go to incredible lengths to convey a message to us. One effective way of conveying a message is through changing a character's setting or situation to allow us to understand the message the author wishes to convey. Two stories that illustrate this literary technique are "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor and "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver. Both authors use extraordinary situations to illustrate how we can learn from our situations.

In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," O'Connor uses the extraordinary situation of the family's premature death to bring us to the realization that people are not always what they seem. O'Connor contrasts the overbearing Misfit with the grandmother to illustrate how two seemingly different people can be similar. For example, the grandmother is not evil per se but she is annoying and self-righteous. She tells her family to beware of the Misfit but then leads them directly in to his path. When they encounter the Misfit, the grandmother is the only one that carries on a real conversation with him.

Through their conversation, we see how alike they are in that they are both adamant and stubborn. She tries to talk to him about religion by insisting that he pray and he can only tell her that Jesus is the one that messed everything up for him. He tells her:

Jesus thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and it He didn't then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can -- by killing somebody of burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness. (O'Connor 1088)

It is through a horrible act of violence that the grandmother and we understand that things do not always work out as we plan and some stories do not have a happy ending.

In "Cathedral," Carver utilizes a less dramatic setting to convey a message to us. In this story, the narrator is uneasy about Robert's visit and does not know how to behave when they first meet. It is only through a conversation about cathedrals that allows the narrator to discover something about Robert and himself. The setting is significant because this is the place where the narrator and Robert meet and where the narrator has his epiphany.

The mood of the home changes from negative to positive.

Sight becomes significant in the story as well because that is what the entire story revolves around and that is what ultimately brings the two men closer. Because the narrator attempts to help Robert understand, he, too, discovers something about himself that is "really something" (Carver 228). Here we see that some of the coolest things in life cannot be predicted.