With the stories “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’ Connor, and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, happen to have some common ideas throughout each story. One common idea happens to be that their is a main antagonist or predator, who seem to attack/prey on the women. In each story, it shows that there was a part where each woman took time to talk to these men who were controlling the situation and deceiving the women, using violence to kill the poor innocent women. Both antagonists are good at ‘killing’ and they both know that they are, because they know what they are doing- causing tragic problems. Ideas like these are important because you see how men, in that time period, were being perceived and portrayed- …show more content…
While in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, Arnold, our other antagonist in this specific short story, is seen casually conversing with Connie, our victim, before inducing her to his car and killing her. Both the Misfit and Arnold commit the crimes of murder by using violence. For no specific reason, the Misfit kills the family member one after another and Arnold stalks/lurks women and kills them. All for no apparent reason. Obviously both of these men murder just for the pleasure, they enjoy the the terrible acts that are being done. These stories could be a form of hint that these authors are possibly going through something in their own personal lives, being affected by something and just so happened to write about their own stories.They were letting their readers know about their traumatic, horrific …show more content…
This is not physically printed in the story but you could assume that the Misfit and his comrades or buddies, were possibly stalking the family and were just waiting for the right moment, for instance when the car crash happened, the Misfit and his buddies just so happened to arrive at the scent to attack their chosen victims, and when he saw his opportunity he took it. The Misfit probably individually chose the Grandma to be the last individual of the family, to basically be soloed out from the beginning and just planned how to figure out his way of getting rid of the rest of the grandmas family. Without any loud, exaggerated noises or anyone to witness, the Misfit and his buddies were able to successfully pull it off and somehow get away with it. While with Arnold, he obviously chose Connie as his victim, by stalking her from wherever she went, somehow making her find him attractive and ‘seducing’ her with his words- reason why she left with him in the beginning. Arnold was really good at manipulating Connie to do what he pleased. He was able to fully commit his murder because he knew how to talk to her from the start, having stalked her for some time. These two stories are important because it shows how people can be so unaware to the
People with power maintain their power by control over bodies, legacy and false appearances. To initiate, people maintain their power by having control over bodies as shown in the book “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates and the short story “Where have you been? Where are you going?” by Joyce Carol Oates. Coates describes how white people have maintained their power within society through the following quote: “As for now, it must be said that the process of washing the disparate tribes white, the elevation of the belief in being white, was not achieved through wine tasting and ice cream socials, but rather through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor and land; through the flaying of backs; the chaining of limbs; the strangling
In the stories “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates, and “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor, both of the main characters go face to face with evil. There are many similarities and differences though the two short stories. Both stories use the effects of epiphany to generate a newfound description, as well as different types of dialect and characterization to describe each of the characters. In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, epiphany is displayed as the Grandmother tries to convince the Misfit to let her go.
He also showed that he had a motive for murder, this was proven when he stated “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” which shows that his reason for the murder was the old man’s eye. To conclude, Subject A had very low autonomic arousal which made him cold, callous, dispassionate and a reason for
The demonstration of the narrator's imagination unconsciously leads his own thoughts to grow into a chaotic mess that ultimately ends in a death. By murdering, it’s his own way of finding peace. He is portrayed as being a sadist, sick man with an unnatural obsession for
The grotesque psychopathic nature of the characters in Flannery O’Connor’s, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” ironically shows how a good man does not truly exist through the revelation and proclamation of what characteristics a good man possess. In the story The Misfit shows characteristics of a psychopath by escaping prison and killing an innocent family. However, The Misfit isn’t the only character in the short story to show psychopathic tendencies. The grandma also shows some characteristics of a psychopath because she does not care or show remorse for her family who was brutally murdered
The Misfit and Arnold Friend both provide to be effective authoritative predators in persuading their victims to follow their directives which ultimately lead to their unfortunate deaths and abduction. Both characters in each of these short stories also exhibited insinuated religious implications that related them mainly to two major figures in religion, Jesus and the Devil. After analyzing The Misfit and Arnold's relationship with their respective main characters, many differences were also noted that separated them as individual manipulators that each performed their own tasks to get what they
Viewing The Misfit as a tragic figure, we sympathize with his actions and feel remorse for who he has become. The readers see him as a victim and sympathize for his actions, including killing the elderly Grandmother. Although he is an awful person, because he is a male character, it is acceptable for him to have issues, but it is not acceptable for a woman to have any sort of issue. As the Misfits says, “She would have been a good woman...if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” (O’Connor), this suggests that the Grandmother was an awfully annoying woman, but if she had a man there to keep her in line, she would have been a decent
Both of story are descriptive writing. Because a good man is hard to find & the necklace described the setting, mood and character of each story. In’’ the necklace ‘’ Mathilde, she is young lady maybe on her 30th she daydream pleasure of life which is money. But in ‘’ A Good Man Is hard to Find ‘’ The Grandmother from’’ A Good Is Hard to Find’’ she is an elder woman who might be on her 60th
The Role of Family in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, written by Flannery O’Connor is a short story that brings out mystery and cruelty. Manipulation plays a big role in this story by the grandmother. She tends to manipulate her family and tends to get her way by playing with them. Although the author wanted to give many perspectives of the grandmother, we as reader got our own views of her.
and they are all planning a trip to Florida. Although it has been decided that they are going to Florida, the grandmother is frustrated and tries to convince her son and his family that they should go to Tennessee instead since more family lives there and there are sights to see there. She also argues that going to Florida would only put the family in danger as there was a serial killer on the loose who goes by the name of “Misfit”. This, in itself, already raises a red flag for readers since they just so happen to be travelling to a place where a serial killer is running loose. Despite the grandmother’s protests against their trip to Florida, they all get in the car and begin their journey.
The misfit gains awareness of human morals when he kills the grandmother and he says, "She would have been a good woman...if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life" (O 'Connor 1020), he then realized that she wasn 't all that good. O 'Connor did a good job of interpreting the grandmother as a way to put away the values of the old Southern America; she also interprets the Misfit as a type of common man who is defiantly not perfect which can a realistic version of the new Southern America. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find", the irritating grandmother cares more about matters such as her appearance and manners, she dressed her best for the car ride and the reason for her doing this is so that "In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would at once know that she was a lady." (O 'Connor 1010). The grandmother is a very selfish woman, the first thing she said to the Misfit is "You wouldn 't shoot a lady, would you?"
(6:27). O 'Connor presents both the view of the Misfit as a fellow human being in pain, and the feeling of love for him, as a gift from God. The grandmother as a human being, is prone towards evil and selfishness, so she could never have come to feel such love without God 's help, as this man was going to kill her. This moment of grace is incredibly important in the story. The Misfit kills the grandmother, withdrawing from her and what seems foreign to him (human compassion), but the grandmother already had her moment of redemption.
The reality between the Misfit and the Grandmother are very different and from this viewpoint it seems as if the Grandmother is a more dishonest and unfaithful person when it comes to selfishness. The Misfit does not express selfishness, rather he equally treats himself as he would with the people that he murdered. With two distinct differences in reality, both show similar signs of
In the short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the author, Flannery O 'Connor, demonstrates how a short story can contain many aspects of feminism without one even noticing. Looking at the short story through a feminist point of view, one can quickly gather that O’Connor uses the old school gender roles from the very beginning of the short story. As reading the title, it automatically suggests the male characters in this short story are untrustworthy, not prevalent, and dangerous. With that being said, the female characters in this story are viewed in the eyes of how a woman should act.
In her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor introduces the reader to a world of family issues, danger, and murder. The story was written in 1955 during a period of social and racial unrest in the southern United States. Mostly, the story follows O 'Connor 's basic Southern Gothic writing style. A work that is "cold and dispassionate, as well as almost absurdly stark and violent" (Galloway). While the quote gives major insight into the theme of the story, it does not offer a glimpse into O 'Connor 's real message of the story.