A Good Man Is Hard To Find Essays (Examples)

Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor. Specifically, it will focus on the use of comedy/humor, foreshadowing, and irony in the work. Flannery O'Connor is one of the South's most well-known writers, and nearly all of her works, including this short story, take place in Southern locales. Her work embodies the Southern lifestyle, which includes close family ties, attention to family roots, and a more laid-back and relaxed way of looking at the world. In this short story, the matriarch of the family is The Grandmother, and she plays a key role in the story and in the story's outcome. Her impetus sets the family out on their adventure and leads to the inevitable conclusion. This is a story with humor, irony, and a heavy sense of foreboding, and yet it is enjoyable, if predictable, to the very end. O'Connor is a master of characterization, and here, her…

Flannery O'Connor
Education: Reading

Paraphrase

Instructions:

The following assignment is based on your reading of Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" (OCR pp. 249-261) and on Claire Katz's critical essay, "The Function of Violence in O'Connor's Fiction" (OCR p. 263). (You can also find this assignment in Literature to Go (OCR) p. 263. Click on the highlight "Considerations.")?

Answer question #2: To what extent might "A Good Man is Hard to Find" be accurately described as a story "in which a character attempts to live autonomously, to define…values, only to be jarred back to…'reality' -- the recognition of helplessness in the face of contingency…" (paragraph 2)? Format: rite your response in standard essay style. DO INLCUDE a separate orks Cited page. Use either MLA or APA style.

To what extent might "A Good Man is Hard to Find" be accurately described as a story "in which a…

Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” details a road trip gone wrong, as a southern family steers themselves right into the hands of a serial killer. The protagonist is a grandmother with skewed social values and norms, as well as the beginnings of cognitive impairment or dementia. When she mistakenly tells her son to head to the wrong state to find a house from her distant memories, the grandmother sets in motion a chain of events that leads to the death of her whole family. Using violent imagery, Flannery O’Connor provides an inherently pessimistic tale with a nihilistic theme.
The title of the story refers to a line delivered by a minor character, Red Sammy, the restaurant owner. Red Sammy and the grandmother are from the same generation, which waxes nostalgic about what they believe to have been better times after discussing the serial killer…

Good Man is Hard to Find
For the purposes of this essay, I chose Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find." "A Good Man is Had to Find" is an apt topic for research such as this, because the ambiguity of the story's position regarding a grandmother ultimately responsible for the death of her entire family leads to a wide variety of possible readings, each with its own adherents and defenders. Upon reading this story, I immediately questioned the grandmother's role in the story, and especially whether or not the story portrayed her in a positive or negative light, because although at points in the story she appears positive in contrast to the other characters, she is ultimately shown to be reactive, shortsighted, and altogether incapable of protecting either her family or herself. Using Google Scholar, I searched for academic essays and books discussing "A Good…

Good Man is Hard to Find
Flannery O'Conner's short story, a Good Man is Hard to Find is a modern parable. The story is laced with symbolism and religious subtext. In many ways the piece is similar to classical Greek plays about pride and retribution.

efore launching into a discussion of O'Conner's story it is important to understand the woman and her motivations to write. O'Conner was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925 to her devout Catholic parents, Edward and Regina O'Conner. Flannery spent her youth attending Catholic parochial schools. In 1938, the family moved to a town just outside Atlanta called Milledgeville where Flannery continued her education. Unfortunately, her father would ultimately die in this town as the result of complications from the disease lupus. Flannery went on to Georgia State College for Women and then proceeded to the State University of Iowa where she received her MFA in…

Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" provides readers with ideas related to morality and to the fact that society has the tendency to put labels on things. The central characters in the story form a rather dysfunctional family, with the father being pressured by his mother to do a series of things that he doesn't want to while she appears to leave in an imaginary world. The idea of good is used to such a degree in the story that it eventually comes to lose significance. The grandmother seems to be obsessed with this respective concept and uses it to describe a series of things. Instead of actually making it possible for readers to gain a more complex understanding of the idea, she brings confusion to the topic as a result of generalizing it and using it in context where it does not necessarily apply.…

She does so initially through semi-sincere flattery: "you shouldn't call yourself The Misfit because I know you're a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell," (147). Later, she gets under the Misfit's skin by touching him, an act that causes him to shoot her.
It is precisely the Grandmother's willful desire to control other people and situations that the entire family ends up dead. For example, it was the Grandmother's fault that Bailey took the wrong turn; in fact the Grandmother uses cunning lies to lure the family into going to visit the plantation: "There was a secret panel in this house,' she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were," (143). hen she realized her error, she did not admit it, preferring to remain in control of the situation. Her silent embarrassment caused the accident that led to the encounter with…

(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…

Plot and "Good Man is Hard to Find"
An Analysis of Plot in O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

Plot, as Aristotle observes, is the representation of an action with a beginning, middle, and an end. Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is an example of a short story with just such a plot. O'Connor's stories often represent the action of grace, and in this story the action of grace is first seen as lacking, as something that is needed in the Grandmother; then it is prepared for by the trip, and finally it is delivered through the intervention of the Misfit and his meeting with the Grandmother. This paper will show how plot works by using O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find."

The action of O'Connor's short story is set up in the first paragraph when the Grandmother is described as not…

Both have in their own way gone against the norm. When Babli, embittered by the men in her life, and after losing hope of ever having the man she loves decides to have a baby alone, she breaks her fathers will. For in a traditional Hindu family the girl accepts the match set up by the father, but here, we read how she chooses her mate, loses him and then goes against her own values to have a child. it's the ultimate rebellion from the conventional ways and undermines the very conception of hindu family values as understood by the traditional Indians, and hence creates a conflict of conventional and modern ways and starts the debate of whether second and third generation immigrants will ever completely follow their own cultures as set forth by their parents.
5. The Gold-Legged Frog by Khamsing Srinawk

Passage: "You sure are lucky,' the words…

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…

Cars and driving are emblems of American culture, and have defined American lifestyle and identity. American cities are built around the car, and so is the urban and suburban sprawl. It is no small coincidence, therefore, that both Flannery O'Connor and Dagoberto Gilb use a car as a central symbol in their short stories. In O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find," a road trip turns deadly when the family runs into a group of escaped convicts on their way to Florida. Florida makes a brief appearance in Gilb's short story, "Love in L.A.," too, as protagonist Jake mistakes Mariana's heritage for being Cuban since her license plates are from Florida. Like "A Good Man is Hard to Find," "Love in L.A." centers around cars and driving as the central motifs, but in Gilb's story, the ending is not gruesome. Although "Love in L.A." And "A Good Man is…

Frailty of the Human Psyche Explored by Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor's stories remain popular because she creates colorful characters that help her drive her points home. In many ways, O'Connor delivers readers a different reality, which allows them to look upon characters in a different way, thus forcing them to look at humanity in a different way as well. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Everything that Rises Must Converge," O'Connor presents extreme realities with extraordinary characters. Grandma, The Misfit, Julian and his mother appear to be one kind of person but in truth, they are different from these facades. They believe they are one way but readers see them as something else. The reader in these cases is the silent observer and O'Connor uses this situation well because this is how we are in many situations in everyday life. e simply watch others as they interact…

Southern Stories Revelation of the Intrigues of Classism and Racism
The two stories, William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily and Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is hard to find are southern literature. Southern literature share common elements such as family focus, racial issues, classism and justice among others. Faulkner is one frequently mentioned writer especially in relation to the Renaissance movement during the 1930s. A Nobel Prize winner he is a significant figure in the history of the south. Faulkner witnessed the challenges that the South faced during his time and more so the discrimination against the African-Americans and the reluctance of the political establishment to embrace change. As much as he was not vocal on these issues, he used perspectivism as a tool against these issues and to point at the erosion of the southern hospitality that gave the family and community priority over the individual. He is bold…

Crime and Punishment
Ours is an extremely violent kind of world where even the most common type of folk can find themselves faced with types of unspeakable horrors and criminal activity through little or no intention of their own. In American literature, a common theme is the concept of the freedom of choice and how a person's choices come to affect not only themselves, but all of the people around them. Some of the choices that people, and their literary counterparts, make lead them to crime. It is the purpose of the American justice system to ensure that crimes are punished. However, in literature, that is not always the case. Crime in the American judicial sense is activity which violates the laws of the United States of America. In literature, these are not always the crimes that the authors feel deserve punishment. Three specific stories which deal with crime and…

Although he is compared to divinity, The Misfit is not a "good man," just as the Grandmother is not a good woman. O'Connor purposely alludes to the Old Testament because the deity described there is not necessarily "good" in the sense that He brings joy to human beings. Rather, the Biblical God is vengeful, full of wrath and disgust for humanity. God is, in many ways, like The Misfit. He brings disasters upon humanity and punishes people, often for no reason, as in the story of Job. The Old Testament God is then compared with Jesus Christ, about whom the grandmother and The Misfit exchange many words. Based on their discussions, it is clear that The Misfit has contemplated the nature of Jesus far more than the grandmother, who simply relies on her faith. The grandmother continuously pleads with The Misfit to "pray." However, his response is an intellectual investigation…

Is there such a thing as retribution, though -- or at least does evil ever regret its actions. As the story ends, Misfit seems to be thinking about goodness and probably thinking that evil is not the answer to the problems in his life. At the end of the story Misfit regrets killing Grandma, and says that "she would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." Everyone has evil inside them; sometimes we see only good or only evil; but the battle exists on various planes in a regular, almost evolutionary manner -- the conflict is what drives humans forward. What are these consequences, though? If Mme. Loisel would not have been so determined to rise above her station and show off, or if she had been more honest and less presumptive, she would not have spent a…

killer and his victim has been one of the most enduring topics throughout horror and suspense fiction, and it is this relationship which ties together three ostensibly distinct stories: Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find," Joyce Carol Oates' "here Are You Going, here Have You Been," and Edgar Allen Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." In each case, the majority of the story consists of the killer talking to his victim(s), some of whom are unaware of their fate at the beginning of the conversation, but who gradually come to realize the killer's true intention. The relationship which develops between killer and victim (however brief) in each story reveals something about how killers are treated by society, as people, and within society, as characters and archetypes. Considering how each of these stories intersect and diverge in their treatment of the relationship between killer and victim will serve to…

There is an almost pitiable desperation to challenge her sensibilities, indeed to teach her a lesson, that is overtly self-serving. And so we see, in the resolution of O'Connor's story, that Julian will suffer the consequences of his illusions. In no way does Julian's behavior absolve the deplorable belief system espoused by his mother and the great many of her ilk. However, it does demonstrate the smallness of all its subjects. The humorous moments leading to the climax -- in which Julian's mother and the portly black woman on the bus are revealed to be wearing the same hat about which such a fuss had been pitched in the story's opening sequence -- imply a sort of likeness between the women. The two are irreparably segregated from one another by a prejudice inbuilt to centuries of intolerance, mistreatment and mis-education. And for Julian's mother, racism is a natural worldview derived…

Traditions and traditional ways of doing things are considered good or moral, while modern times are considered worse than the past and immoral. At the end of the short story, it is the grandmother who is continually insisting that "The Misfit" is actually good inside, begging for him to find his own sense of morality.
"Araby," however, offers an almost opposite view of morality. While readers of "A Good Man is Hard To Find" are barraged with the grandmother's ideas of morality and instructions on how to be more moral, the main character in "Araby" practices an internal monitoring of his morality. For instance, the main character assesses the Priest who lived in the family's home as a tenant, thinking him generous because he gave away all of his possessions upon his death. Further, at the end of the story, the main character has the chance to evaluate his own…

The grandmother does not realize the harmful effects that her behavior can have in particular circumstances. She blindly acts as if she is not talking with a cruel murderer at the time when she comes across the Misfit. This backfires on her and is ultimately the reason for which she and her family end up being killed by the murderers. Through labeling the Misfit as a blood-thirsty killer she actually influences him in acknowledging that his only option is to kill the whole family.

All things considered, the grandmother is guilty and innocent at the same time. She is guilty because she is reluctant to act in agreement with society's legislations (even with the fact that they are not fair) and innocent because she lives in a corrupt society that immediately puts an individual down when he or she shows signs of resistance.

ibliography:

O'Conner, Flannery, "A Good Man Is…

Elders, and especially elder females, feature infrequently as protagonists in literature. Phoenix in "A Worn Path" by Eurdora Welty and the grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor provide powerful examples of how elder women can exemplify core themes. Although they are from different backgrounds and have different life experiences, both elder women live in the south and share some common personality traits like stubornness.
Neither of the senior women in "A Worn Path" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find" allows their age to dictate what they can or cannot do, and in fact, seem younger than their years. In "A Worn Path," Phoenix Jackson is described as "very old and small." She walks with a cane and she has wrinkles, but her hair is "still black." She also notes, "I wasn't as old as I thought," after setting out on her little…

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"A Good Man is Hard to Find" ends with the family being executed by the Misfit, a murderous outlaw. Although O'Connor's story is evidently supposed to be humorous, it gives the reader pause to note that the family will die without ever exchanging a kind word. There are different types of family violence: the somewhat positive violence of the Roethke poem that makes the boy adore his father at the expense of his mother vs. The carelessness and cruelty in the O'Connor story, which arises as a result of a lack of respect and the superficiality of the modern family. Family relationships do not necessarily create a state of understanding. In the story, the most transcendent moment of grace occurs between two strangers, before one kills the other, as physical violence makes the grandmother appreciate her time on earth. "His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother's head…

Likewise, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor illustrates the cruelties of modern life. It too begins with ominous foreshadowing. The efforts of the old grandmother to look beautiful foreshadow her fate: "Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." The attitude of the family is evident early on when visiting a roadside diner: "No I certainly wouldn't,' June Star said. 'I wouldn't live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks!' And she ran back to the table." The intrusion of the Misfit into the 'happy' (yet really unhappy) middle-class family's ordinary road trip ironically highlights the pettiness of their concerns, rather than the serial…

This skilled use of ironic prose is also observable in "A Jury of her Peers" by Susan Glaspell, as when the woman who has just committed murder tells the investigators: "after a minute...'I sleep sound.'" the tale depicts how a group of women gradually deduce, through small and simple clues, how Mrs. right killed her husband, and why. The women's observations are more astute than the male investigator's analysis, according to police protocols. The point of the story is not murder, but the fact that the murder's quiet wifely desperation has gone ignored for so long, and that only fellow female sufferers can see this sorrow after the fact. Likewise, the point of O'Connor's story, more than the lurid aspects, are the ways that families and human beings fail to connect and communicate with one another, before it is too late.
A naysayer might sniff and ask why use murder…

character with reference to main themes of the short story, 'A good man is hard to find' by Flannery O'Connor. Grandmother occupies the most important place in the story along with the Misfit. She is quite a manipulative woman whose real character surfaces when she is closest to death.
Good Man is Hard To Find' good man is hard to find' is not exactly the kind of story that you would want to read again and again. This is because there is certain air of evilness surrounding the entire plot and the ending is pretty grotesque. The characters are all rather bleak and death seems to prevail over every scene and conversation. Symbolism has been used effectively to accentuate the presence of death and homicide. Though there appears to be nothing extraordinary about the story, the only thing that really attracts the attention of the readers is close to perfect…

age and several thousand miles separated Russian Alexander Pushkin and American Flannery O'Connor. This essay seeks to illustrate why they deserve to be considered as icons of world literature. Pushkin's body of works spans poetry -- romantic and political, essays, and novels. Influential music composers like Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Rimsky Korsakov and Tchaikovsky adapted the lyrical and dramatic elements of Pushkin's works. Flannery O'Connor's work, on the other hand, was largely restricted to short stories. The profundity of her work lies in its uniqueness -- not volume. Her stories hide gruesomeness, truth and religious thought that is not immediately obvious at a superficial level.
The short-story "The Queen of Spades," while not necessarily representative of all of Pushkin's work gives us an idea of the narrative skills that keep the reader on edge. (Pushkin, 1834) The twists in the story combine elements of fantasy. ut at heart this is a story…

People can be affected by religion in different ways and The Misfit becomes the perfect character to uncover the grandmother's gullibility. She, in turn, is the perfect person to expose his evil nature. This contrast allows O'Connor uses to reveal the delicate nature of man. Somehow, in the midst of everything, the two people bond, leaving the grandmother with a false sense of hope. She believes, because she knows best, that she has transformed his life. She truly believes she can change him. Parini writes that at the moment he shots her, she realizes "they are connected, and through a horrible act of violence she has received a moment of understanding, if not grace" (Parini 231). The showdown becomes one between The Misfit's powerful convictions and the grandmother's shallow beliefs. O'Connor proves with these individuals the importance of being passionate about the right thing. Being passionate about Jesus is good,…

In O'Connor short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the antagonist is an outlaw, in keeping with the frequent use of alienated members of society in Romantic poetry and literature. The alienated member of society is contrasted with the crass materialism and superficiality of the family the Misfit kills. The child June Star is so poorly brought up that she says: "I wouldn't live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks!" To the owner of the roadside restaurant the family stops at, and is punished dearly for her transgression by the author O'Connor with death.
Yet the grandmother, upon hearing of the story of the Misfit says: "hy you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" The grandmother is said to "reached out and touch" the Misfit him on the shoulder, but the Misfit is said to have "sprang back as if…

Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" and the death of the American Dream:
The play "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller shows the falseness of the American dream, namely that by obtaining material security for one's self and one's family, one finds true happiness. illy, even during his lifetime expresses dismay he has worked a lifetime to pay for his house, only to not have his favored elder son live in it. He takes his life, feeling that he is better off dead, rather than living and working on commission, and his wife's final outcry at his grave that the family now owns the home and is free and clear seems hollow -- clearly she would rather have a living husband and debt, than a dead husband, an empty life, and a full bank account. Happy states to Linda, "he had no right to do that. There was no…

The entrance of this Christ-figure in her life will certainly lead to a revelation of sorts, shocking her perhaps even out of her disbelief.
Conclusion

It is always clear that there are lessons in Flannery O'Connor's short stories. It is not always clear what those lessons are intended to be. Both "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Good Country People" demonstrate a belief that God works in surprising and frightening ways, and that people don't really understand each other. The complexity and richness of the debates that stems form these assertions are some of the reasons behind O'Connor's continued popularity and the ongoing scholarship concerned with her body of fiction.

orks Cited

Allen, Charlotte. "Grace and the Grotesque." The ilson Quarterly Vol. 29, No. 1 (inter, 2005), pp. 114-116.

Curley, Edwin. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 65,…

quintessential elements of grotesque and the burlesque in Edgar Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. The author opens the story with the description of a dreary environment. "DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens"(1846). This introduction is reason enough for an instinctive reader to pre-empt the nature of things to unfold. He goes further to explain the landscape, the haunted house, "….upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees…"( 1846). Moreover, there are many other indicators of grotesque elements including the author's description of Roderick and his sister's health conditions. He goes into detail on Madeline telling of the feelings she evokes on him. Nonetheless, the vagueness in the story is also…

Circle in the Fire," and "Everything that Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor
This is a paper on the analysis of the two books "A Circle in the Fire," and "Everything that Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor, which exposes many similarities between them.

The two stories of Flannery O'Connor are written from a matriarchal perspective and depict the lives of women in control of other's lives or property. They show that no matter how much wealth a person may amass, they are all still prone to suffer. Thus, there is an element of 'twist of fate' in both these pieces of literature. It also shows that as these leading characters are women they should understand the world from their softer perspective because of the fact that there are still others of their type in a worse of position financially, as well as politically. Instead, we see the opposite from…

Latashia Weston
Original Work

Poem -- Version 1: "next to of course god america i"

"next to of course god america i" E.E. Cummings

A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Short Writing: Paraphrasing a scene from a play

Revised Work

Short Fiction -- John Updike -- "A&P"

Short Writing: Describing a Poem

Short Writing: Paraphrasing a scene from a play

Short Story - Cathedral by Raymond Carver

Short Story - A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Glossary

Parody

Symbolism

Theme

Irony

Alliteration

Postmodern

Motif

Style

Character development

In my literary analysis essays, I have endeavored to discover why I thought an author wrote a particular piece, how they think about their work, and why they made the choices they did with regard to theme, character development, and use of literary devices. I have also attempted to make my own perspective transparent in my writing, and through this effort,…

myth of Narcissus is often misunderstood; many of the readers of the myth interpret the events as Narcissus gazing down at his own reflection in the water and falling in love with himself. The reality of the myth is that through some insufficiency of his own character, Narcissus is unable to identify that the reflection in the water is himself. The lack inside of Narcissus causes him to believe it's another person and he falls in love with this vision. A similar lack pervades through the characters of the story "Indian Camp" by Ernest Hemingway and "Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor. In these stories, characters abound with paucities in nature but surfeits in egotism. This paper will examine the similarities in the imbalance of the moral fiber of these characters, the language that surrounds them to display this phenomenon and attempt to demonstrate how such visions of superiority have…

Nineteen Thirty-Seven and the River
Edwidge Danticat and Flannery O'Connor both explore the influence of religion in creating a belief system in individuals who have been disconnected from societies' main stream in their shot stories Nineteen Thirty-Seven and The River. Characters in both stories have been abandoned by humanity and strive to regain their identity through God's grace. Danticat uses a poverty stricken Haitian woman, Manman, who has been accused of being a witch and incarcerated, while O'Connor incorporates a very young affluent boy, Bevel, who has been discounted as a human being and forsaken by his parents to frame their stories. Both Manman and Bevel use religion, specifically Christianity, to help them find an identity under hostile conditions.

Danticat's story is set in Haiti, in a society that is dominated by poverty and superstitious beliefs. Manman is hauled out of her home one morning, beaten by her neighbors, and…

devout Catholic peering critically at Southern evangelical Protestant culture, Flannery O'Connor never separates faith and place from her writings. Her upbringing and her life story become inextricably intertwined with her fiction, especially in her short stories. O'Connor was born Mary Flannery O'Connor on March 25, 1925, the only daughter of Regina Cline and Edwin Francis. Having grown up in Savannah and living most of her life in Georgia, Flannery possessed a uniquely disturbing yet reverential perspective on Southern life and culture. Moreover, her Catholic belief and upbringing lent the overtly Biblical symbolism to her stories, many of which twist the sacred into the profane and vice-versa. Flannery, who dropped her first name when she attended the University of Iowa, wrote throughout her entire life, in spite having a debilitating disease called disseminated lupus, which caused her early death in 1964. However, even in her weakest physical conditions, O'Connor discovered the…

Suffering
Tim Murphy

Theology

MA2000D

The existence of human suffering poses a unique theological problem. If God is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving, then why does suffering exist? Indeed, this difficulty is confronted in scripture itself: perhaps the most important look into the problem of suffering comes in the Old Testament story of Job. Mainstream Christianity continues to have a variety of ways of approaching this theological question, although historically Christians had a much broader spectrum of responses. For example, today's mainstream Christianity is a result of the establishment of orthodoxy in the face of Gnostic Christians, who used the existence of suffering as a way of questioning whether God was indeed omnipotent or all-loving. Gnosticism instead posits a "demiurge" or "alien god" that created this world and its suffering without being omnipotent or good. ut the oldest mainstream form of Christian orthodoxy today -- represented by the Roman Catholic faith…

religion-focused works from literature, theatre, music, or art (such as painting and sculpture). How do they call a religion into question?
eligion is a common theme in literature, art, and music. For example, the book The Da Vinci Code is about the Catholic Church. Although the book does not discuss serious theological issues, the author Dan Brown does talk about the political hierarchies in the Church. Therefore, Brown calls into question the legitimacy of the Church due to its being a highly secretive and powerful organization that potentially uses its power as a means of social control. The book also explores the possibility that there are other narratives that can be equally as valid as the dominant narratives people have been taught.

eligion in one way or another has inspired most art throughout history and in cultures around the world. In some cultures, art is inseparable from religion, as with…

Yet perhaps no American author embraced the grotesque with the same enthusiasm as the Southern Flannery O'Connor. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," O'Connor uses the example of a family annihilated by the side of the road by an outlaw named the Misfit to show the bankruptcy of American life. Instead of an evil serial killer, the Misfit is portrayed as a kind of force of divine justice, who unintentionally allows the grandmother of the family to experience grace. She says that she believes the man is like one of own her children before he kills her. In O'Connor's stories, the characters do not fight for their insight, rather it is given in mysterious, often deadly ways, and it always originates with the divine, not with the human will.
If O'Connor represents the most extreme version of grotesque American literature, Ralph Ellison represents perhaps the most balanced use…

This is a lesson, and Easy learns many lessons throughout the novel, including, as he runs into more and more corruption and racial hatred, how "many Jews... understood the American Negro; in Europe the Jew had been a Negro for more than a thousand years" (Mosley 138). Comparing Jews and Negroes is another aspect of the book that indicates how deep racial tensions were at the time. In order to solve his mystery, Easy must overcome these racial tensions, and because he is bright and motivated, he does, but it is not always easy.
Mosley brings Southern California in the 1940s vividly to life, and racial relations and prejudice are alive and well even in Los Angeles. He continues,

California was like heaven for the southern Negro. People told stories of how you could eat fruit right off the trees and enough work to retire one day. The stories were…

Spade walking down to examine a murder makes use of shadows as well as high black-white contrast in order to convey drama and suspense. This is commonly referred to as the film noir lighting technique because it conveys a sense of mystery and danger. The lighting highlights the most extreme contours of the character's faces, but none of the moderating details such as texture or color. This makes the facial expressions look much more dramatic than they would under normal lighting.
The costumes are also very typical of the film noir genre. Spade is wearing a black wool overcoat and a fedora and his counterpart from the police station is wearing the same outfit. This is a style of dress associated with detectives, who sometimes had to conceal their identity and not stand out. The overcoat conceals much of the person's figure and could conceal weapons or other objects.

The…

There are costs to bearing and believing in such a secret.
These costs are manifested in many ways. There are the psychosomatic costs Jesse endures, his impotence, his weakness around the black boy in the jail, his tremors at the thought of Otis, "Now the thought of Otis made him sick. He began to shiver." There are also the psychological costs that Jesse is plagued by, the self-delusion associated with believing racism is moral, the mental anguish, and the constant struggle over whether he can trust his coconspirators, "They were forced to depend on each other more and, at the same time, to trust each other less" (Baldwin). What Baldwin is underscoring with these psychological and psychosomatic burdens is that the path Jesse has followed, a path of racism and discrimination, has led him to a very troubled existence.

Baldwin wants the reader to understand that proponents for a Jim…

Kent on the other hand cannot prevent himself from gazing again and again at the man's scar and making all sorts of stupid remarks. He also fails to stop the sailor from controlling him and he is absorbed by -- enslaved to -- his superstitions:

This was the real Man with the Gash, the man who had so often robbed him in the spirit. This, then, was the embodied entity of the being whose astral form had been projected into his dreams, the man who had so frequently harbored designs against his hoard; hence -- there could be no other conclusion -- this Man with the Gash had now come in the flesh to dispossess him. And that gash! He could no more keep his eyes from it than stop the beating of his heart. Try as he would, they wandered back to that one point as inevitably as the…

Man ho Shot Liberty Valance and the Brilliance of John Ford
John Ford's The Man ho Shot Liberty Valance (1962), a classic western with a few film noir elements included, is elegiac in the sense that its narrative strategy is that of eulogistic remembrance by now-Senator Ransom Stoddard, of horse rancher Tom Doniphan, who once saved Stoddard's life and changed it much for the better, and who was the real man who shot Liberty Valance. According to Robert Horton, "This may be the saddest estern ever made, closer to an elegy than an action movie, and as cleanly beautiful as its central symbol, the cactus rose" ("Editorial Reviews"). Upon Tom Doniphan's death in the small fictional town of Shinbone (state unknown) Ransom and Hallie Stoddard arrive back in town to pay their final respects to Doniphan who sacrificed so much of himself, and so much of his own future happiness,…

Personal Values in Sports
As with most dimensions of life, personal values and beliefs have a demonstrable effect on what is rendered in the form of behavior on the sports field of play and with the activities that surround the same. Beyond that, this paradigm is clear and visible irrespective of whether one is talking about the athletes, the coaches or even the parents of child (or sometimes college) athletes in some instances. This research report shall focus on the factors that most significantly engage and affect people when they are operating within the sports realm. The work of Donghun Lee (2011) will be a major focal point of this report but other sources will be looped in as well. While there are many factors and things that can influence somebody when it comes to sports, it is the free will and moral fortitude of an individual and the resolve…

children go through. This is especially true for children that underwent something traumatic or continue to endure traumatic events. Billy, a 13-year-old Hispanic boy, deals with many stresses in life. From having dealt with physical abuse from his parents to enduring multiple foster care families, to living in a bad neighborhood where there are multiple gang related incidents a week, it makes sense Billy has rebelled and become a product of his environment. That is not to say however, he will continue to vandalize cars and shoplift, but it may help explain why he has done the things he has.
The first societal influence is abuse. When a child goes through physical abuse there a host of consequences. First and foremost, the child loses trust in people. When someone like a parent physically abuses their child, the child sees that the person meant to protect him instead hurts him, destroying…

Men Undressed: An Examination
One of the most intriguing aspects of reading this anthology was how sex offered up these writers a more compelling platform upon which to write as sex is a topic which almost always grabs the attention of the reader, but which offered an opportunity for these writers to explore other, even more compelling topics such as emotions, the balance of power, gender identities, among others. Sex was used repeatedly in the book as a strong means by which the writers could approach certain human issues and stumbling blocks and seek to overcome them. The anthology creates a really interesting dialogue in the sense that it presents sex as both an element of an intimate and romantic relationship but also something which exists as a relationship unto itself. This is something that the anthology can courageously explore while shaking off the puritanical morality that is so embedded…

Biologist
He was born a normal, healthy boy and he grew as little boys do, with G.I. Joe dolls and plastic guns.

He seemed so normal through and through.

When he chose books over monkey bars they thought him a little bit queer.

He didn't pay sports like the others;

instead he read all of Shakespeare.

Then they told him men did not write poems, but they loved working with numbers.

So he buried his inclinations and struggled with physics blunders.

The boy became a biologist, successful and smart they all thought.

But in his heart he hated his life and the terrible lies he bought.

Jennie's Side of The Yellow Wallpaper

I feel so sorry for John's wife. Sometimes I just do not know what to think of their situation. On one hand, I understand that she is suffering from something dreadful and John is only trying to help…

Vision for Society: A Just Society
The Vision: A Just Society

It is a moral duty for those in immigration department to ensure that immigrants get free English classes to help them promote their own life. In AACA, there are rules that do not allow employees to help immigrants. For instance, reading letters for immigrants who cannot read and understand English is not a responsibility of AACA staff. In this regard, clients end up going back with unsolved problems because AACA staffs are not obliged to assist them. Although such acts do not form part of the organization's duty, helping these immigrants read bills and solve their problems is a moral duty that calls for commonsense. Commonsensical thoughts from Kant's point-of-view begin with the idea that what is good; is a good will. The thought of good will is a noteworthy reasonable decisive factor that Kant employs all through his…

Your answer should be at least five sentences long.
The Legend of Arthur

Lesson 1 Journal Entry # 9 of 16

Journal Exercise 1.7A: Honor and Loyalty

1. Consider how Arthur's actions and personality agree with or challenge your definition of honor. Write a few sentences comparing your definition (from Journal 1.6A) with Arthur's actions and personality.

2. Write a brief paragraph explaining the importance or unimportance of loyalty in being honorable.

Lesson 1 Journal Entry # 10 of 16

Journal Exercise 1.7B: Combining Sentences

Complete the Practice Activity on page 202 of your text. After completing this activity, read over your Essay Assessment or another journal activity you've completed.

* Identify three passages that could be improved by combining two or more sentences with coordinating or subordinating conjunctions. Below the practice activity in your journal, write the original passages and the revised sentences you've created.

* Be sure to…

Those with issues to overcome are always more heroic. Hector also becomes a hero when, after at first running from Achilles, he eventually stands up to him and dies a heroic death.
The Iliad is primarily a war epic. In your opinion, is the Iliad condemnation of the it could easily be argued that the Illiad glorifies war, as much of the poem is spent portraying the warriors as brave and courageous, even as they go on killing rampages. Warriors are describes as "masters of the battle cry" and "warlike" in glowing epithets. When Achilles originally refused to fight, he is roundly condemned for it by all of the other Greek characters. Even the weapons of war, such as Achilles impenetrable shield, are glorified. But homer is more complicated than simple -- war also brings death, which he describes in great detail. Hector's death is perhaps the most graphic of…

Critic Heyen says, "There is no question but that the play is elusive. As Miller himself has said, 'Death of a Salesman is a slippery play to categorize because nobody in it stops to make a speech objectively stating the great issues which I believe it embodies'" (Heyen 47). Therefore, many critics look at the play in different ways, attempting to categorize it and reference it according to their literary and dramatic experience. Heyen, on the other hand, tries to give his own personal reaction to the play, which is that Willy dies happy because he thinks what he is doing is right. He says, "Willy Loman, and this is his new and peculiar dimension, ends up dying happily, ecstatically, because he holds to the dream of meaning, holds to his sort of spiritual Franklinism" (Heyen 56). Willy dies happy, believing he is doing the right thing, and in the…

Tom Shulich ("ColtishHum")
A comparative study on the theme of fascination with and repulsion from Otherness in Song of Kali by Dan Simmons and in the City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre

ABSACT

In this chapter, I examine similarities and differences between The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre (1985) and Song of Kali by Dan Simmons (1985) with regard to the themes of the Western journalistic observer of the Oriental Other, and the fascination-repulsion that inspires the Occidental spatial imaginary of Calcutta. By comparing and contrasting these two popular novels, both describing white men's journey into the space of the Other, the chapter seeks to achieve a two-fold objective: (a) to provide insight into the authors with respect to alterity (otherness), and (b) to examine the discursive practices of these novels in terms of contrasting spatial metaphors of Calcutta as "The City of Dreadful Night" or "The City of…

Bad Experience ith a Priest:
comparison of the Catholicism aspects in Scott's Ivanhoe and Twain's a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

In reading Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, one cannot deny that the blame for the collapse of Hank's new civilization falls on the Church. Throughout the novel, Twain paints a negative image of the Church and its priests. This negative image can also be found in Sir alter Scott's Ivanhoe. Scott gives us characters such as the confused Templar and the misaligned Prior. Both writers have poor views of religion and this is evident in their unflattering portraits of the corrupt medieval church.

Scott's portrait of the Prior is not a very pleasant one. Nothing about him seems to be spiritual. hen we first meet him, his costume is basically appropriate for a priest, but it is said to be "composed of materials much…

Self-Made Man and the Recipient of Divine Grace:
Benjamin Franklin vs. Jonathan Edwards

Despite the fact that both Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards are honored as two of the greatest authors of colonial America, they could not be more different in their ideological orientations. Edwards (1703-1758) is perhaps most famous for penning the image of the human soul as a spider in the hand of a merciful God, suspended above the flames of hell in his sermon "Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God." All human beings, Edwards implied in his image, were essentially fallen beings. A true Puritan, Edwards believed there was no way for hard work to win divine favor; one could only hope to be the recipient of divine grace. In contrast, Franklin (1706-1790), despite living during roughly the same time period as Edwards, was the consummate self-made man. As well as being credited as one…

This decision was a wise one from a business standpoint and it allowed him to drastically reduce costs, which in turn reflected in lower prices for cocaine. Soon enough then, Lucas became the preferred drug provider, selling the quality Blue Magic at low prices. He even became the wholesaler for other drug dealers in the city.
This desire to cut the middle man and deal with operations directly is also present with ichie obinson. Not once is he met with the frustration of the bureaucracy that slows him down. And when he finally manages to better follow the illicit activities, he becomes head of a new department that follows drug dealers directly, rather than focusing on the middle men.

Then, there is the theme of discipline and strong character. ichie oberts is not himself a very disciplined man. His marriage is falling apart and his colleagues dislike him. Still, in…

Corresponding Works
There is a lot of similarity in the works of obert in his poem "The oad Not Taken" and the short story by Welty "A Worn Path." Frost composed the poem in 1916, whereas Welty wrote the short story in 1941. Both of these written works are for the readers to think outside the box and find the true meanings. These writings have a hidden meaning to them and it is up to the reader to think what message the authors are trying to put across. Both writers use stylistic devices to capture the attention of the readers and enable them to form a mental picture of the theme discussed in the writing. In these two writings, one main theme stands out from the rest. The writings point to us to that we might find ourselves in a solitary journey in life whereby we feel that we are…

Victims of a Meaningless Show of Force
Language Analysis:

In the article "Victims of a Meaningless Show of Force" the author uses language to express her point that police firing on two polar bears was unacceptable behavior and as the author says "it was illogical, unfair, and a meaningless show of force." While this statement makes her opinion clear, the author also uses language to create the same opinion in the reader.

The title of the article is a clear example of loaded language. The word 'victims' implies that the polar bears were helpless, while the words 'meaningless show of force' imply that the police officers were only acting to prove something, with no real purpose to their actions.

Before offering an opinion on the shooting, the author describes the shooting. This includes the statement "the four police officers emptied twenty blasts from a 12-gauge shotgun and a.38 caliber revolver…

C. with interest 4 1/2 per cent.
To further arouse compassion, he includes the personal detail about his parents:

"I owe $3,500 to my parents and the interest on that loan which I pay regularly, because it's the part of the savings they made through the years they were working so hard, I pay regularly 4 per cent interest."

. He calls himself "a man of modest means" adding that Abraham Lincoln said: "God must have loved the common people -- "he made so many of them." Nixon, inother words, refers to himself as a 'common'man.

In Paragraph 4, he abuses his opponent commiting the as hominem fallacy i.e. attemtpting to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out negative characteristics or beliefs of the person supporting it.

And now I'm going to suggest some courses of conduct. First of all, you have read in the papers about other…