Address your response to any of the topics, not ones you chose for your main post.
READ:
Introductory material on O’Connor (335-339)
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” (340-349)
“Revelation” (363-376)
Link to the book :
https://u1lib.org/book/7225236/e895f5
O’Connor’s works definitely had theological overtones in them. Personally, I thought both stories were quite reminiscent of Bible parables. There is, also, of course the fact that the title of the second story this discussion, “Revelation”, is nearly identical to the last book of the Bible as well. I’d like to examine this parable-like approach in both of the stories we read for this assignment, as well as make some observations regarding the writing itself and ties to Christianity.
“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” had some notes of interest regarding the writing. Firstly, the grandmother and mother are completely unnamed in this story (O’Connor, 340). While some of the other main characters are named, like Bailey and two of the children, I feel it reflects a certain level of women’s subservience that’s often brought up in the Bible. Despite the importance’s of the grandmother’s actions in the story, she remains nameless. The grandmother also displays a very biblical view of respect to parental figures and other authorities when she said, “children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else” (O’Connor, 341). It’s hard not to read that and immediately think of the Biblical command to honor one’s mother and father.
Regarding the lesson in this story, I believe it is a cautionary tale of losing one’s spirituality. At the outset, it would seem the traveling family are the most important characters in the story. I would argue it’s The Misfit. His fall into a killer appears to have started, if one believes his story, with a conviction he didn’t earn. O’Connor has him describe the situation as, “It was the head-doctor at the penitentiary said what I had done was kill my daddy but I known that for a lie” (348.) The Misfit goes on to tell the grandmother that he was punished so harshly and insinuates that others go unpunished for their deeds at all, so he makes sure to commit crimes that he can keep track of (O’Connor, 348). I believe the lesson in this story is not to fall away from God despite the injustices one might suffer, as the Misfit did. That is a path that leads one to evil.
In “Revelation” much of the writing has some similar allusions to Biblical ideas. The notion of respecting elders pops up again when Mrs. Turpin expected a boy to give up his seat for her (O’Connor, 363-364). There’s a rather pointed reference to Mark 12:31, where Christians are instructed to love their neighbors, when Mrs. Turpin thinks of her way of life. O’Connor wrote, “To help anybody out that needed it was her philosophy of life” (369).
The main lesson of “Revelation”, however, seems to be avoiding thinking of oneself as more holy or deserving of others. Twice within the story, Mrs. Turpin notices a gospel hymn interrupting her thoughts. The first time was while she was in the middle of judging someone internally. The others in the doctor’s office were referred to in an unflattering manner, with terms like “leathery old woman” and “white-trashy” (O’Connor, 365). Immediately after judging the woman she dubbed white-trashy, Mrs. Turpin’s thoughts were stopped by a hymn (O’Connor, 365). The second time a hymn interrupted the conversation taking place was after Mrs. Turpin had tried to refute the rather prejudicial views of the same woman she thought of as white-trashy (O’Connor, 369). The timing of the hymns makes me think the first was a rebuke of her behavior, and that the second hymn was an acknowledgment of doing something good. Essentially, God’s judgment of her actions shown in real time.
After being attacked by college girl she thought of as ugly, Mrs. Turpin goes through an existential crisis. She can’t get the insult the girl hurled at her out of her head, and even goes on to doubt God, much as in the story of Job in the Bible (O’Connor, 372-375). Her interpretation of the sky as it faded from day into night represented the message of the story. Mrs. Turpin, in her imagination, saw all of the types of people she had judged the whole day in the doctor’s office preparing to head to heaven, with “. . . whole companies of white-trash, clean for the first time in their lives . . .” as well as black people and the mentally disturbed (O’Connor, 376). Meanwhile, people like herself and her husband Claud were likely on their way to hell, as the words, “Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away” would seem to indicate (O’Connor, 376). Mrs. Turpin thought she was holier than everyone around her. It turned out to be quite the opposite.
