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O’Connor employed grotesqueness and violence in her stories to illustrate the workings of grace on her characters, but more profoundly she was attempting to simulate the workings of grace in the sensibility of the reader. However, when a reader marches into a story equipped with a horizon of expectations, O\u2019Connor\u2019s artful use of grotesqueness is all that a person sees. O\u2019Connor used her position as a writer to try to \u201cachieve a kind of spiritual super-realism, since both her experience and orthodoxy taught her that all humans are morally grotesque\u201d (Leonard). One classic example of O\u2019Connor\u2019s vulgar writing is her short story, \u201cA Good Man is Hard to Find.\u201d Many question why O\u2019Connor uses such graphic and crude descriptions in her story such as her description of the grandmother, “with her legs crossed under her like a child’s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky;” however, it is not the dead body that O\u2019Connor wishes to express to the reader, but rather the successful action of grace and a soul entering into blessedness. In the final moments of her life, the grandmother sees her moral kinship with the Misfit, leading to her identification with him. O\u2019Connor wishes to depict the moment that the grandmother realizes the flaw in the way she has been practicing Christianity and using her religion in ways in which she seems fit, manipulating it to suit her own purposes in order to conform to her own personal view of righteousness; the character is simply a mode of getting the message across. O\u2019Connor uses this moment to demonstrate the beliefs of the average person blinded by secular thought, but many readers are too appalled by the graphic violence and blatant murder to see the message of grace in O\u2019Connor\u2019s writing. After reading \u201cA Good Man is hard to find,\u201d Tate Barber confesses, \u201cI was honestly so shocked I didn\u2019t even notice the moment of grace until you pointed it out,\u201d and his sentiments are shared by other readers saying things like, \u201cA story that teaches us no more about humanity than a quip in the newspaper regarding yet another <\/p>\n\n\n\n
senseless homicide,\u201d – Joseph DiFrancesco. When confronted with her audience\u2019s confusion about her use of grotesque characters, O\u2019Connor stated: \u201csince the sixteenth century [the world] has been increasingly dominated by secular thought, [so] the Catholic writer often finds himself writing in and for a world that is unprepared and unwilling to see the meaning of life as he sees it. This means frequently that he may resort to violent literary means to get his vision across to a hostile audience,\u201d (ISI). Despite the fact that many of her readers did and do not understand O’Connor’s religious message at first glance because of shattered expectations, she continued to write using shocking violence and grotesque characters to portray her message. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
O\u2019Connor uses her writing in order to inspire her audience toward Christianity, but the message of her work is often mistaken due to readers inability to see outside of their horizon of expectations. In \u201cA Good Man is Hard to Find,\u201d the Misfit says of the grandmother, \u201cShe would have been a good woman … if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” This line is the theme of the story and indicates that the Grandmother deemed herself a \u201cgood christian\u201d through life, but it wasn\u2019t until faced with a violent death that she recognizes kinship between herself and the misfit as God\u2019s children and is shown redemption and true Christianity. While this theme may seem clear to someone instructed to recognize O\u2019Connor\u2019s underlying Christian message, it is not as apparent to the average reader who describes her work as, \u201ccenter[ing] upon two themes: selfishness, and individualism. Essentially the grandmother\u2019s insistence on achieving her own selfish ends results in the death of her entire family, as well as the loss of her own life,\u201d (Palmer). Many stories have happy endings where good overcomes evil and the \u201cbad guy\u201d ends up in jail. Encounters with stories like these set a readers expectations toward other works, so when a happy ending is not the case in \u201cA Good Man is Hard to Find,\u201d a reader can be so overtaken with the violence of the story that they do not notice the religious message. In these cases, O\u2019Connor\u2019s works areagain interpreted differently than intended with the reader focusing on the grandmother\u2019s shortcomings and violent end rather than her redemption because O\u2019Connors work does not match their horizon of expec<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While O\u2019Connor meant to clearly depict a moment of grace and salvation in her story \u201cA Good Man is Hard to Find,\u201d much of her audience did not see the story through the lens of grace. Clara Claiborne Park argues that “\u2019A Good Man Is Hard to Find,\u2019 along with O’Connor’s other stories, fails to reveal the \u2018moment of grace\u2019 O’Connor meant it to reveal. The repetitive mayhem of her fiction, does not invite belief but parody,\u201d (Leonard 49). Park, like many of O\u2019Connor\u2019s readers, is too caught up in the \u201cmayhem\u201d of O\u2019Connor\u2019s writing and her own expectations to see the grace O\u2019Connor aims to depict. One could say that the spiritual purpose in O\u2019Connor\u2019s fiction is disguised. Nevertheless, her Christian vision is manifested in her literary techniques. Brainard Cheney, an early critic who noted this manifestation in his 1964 Sewanee Review<\/em> essay on her fiction, brings into perspective O\u2019Connor\u2019s Christian vision, and her purpose as a writer: \u201cShe invented a new form of humor. . . . This invention consists in her introducing her story with familiar surfaces in an action that seems secular, and in a secular tone of satire or humor. Before you know it, the naturalistic situation has become metaphysical and the action appropriate to it comes with a surprise, an unaccountability that is humorous, however shocking. The means is violent,<\/em> but the end is Christian,\u201d (ISI). When O\u2019Connor \u201cintrodu[es] her story with familiar surfaces\u201d she primes readers and allows the expectations to arise before she tears down the expectations with violence and shock. This tearing down of expectations is what causes readers to be unable to make it past the violent means in order to make it to the Christian end. Lisa from GoodReads <\/em>says, \u201c I could not finish it. Trust me, I tried. The first 5 minutes were awesome, but then all those characters were killed and I didn’t enjoy any part of the book after that point.\u201d Lisa illustrates the common reason as to why O\u2019Connor\u2019s writing is misinterpreted. Much of O\u2019Connor\u2019s audience is so blinded by the brutality and strangeness that shattered their expectations of what should happen in a story that they are unable to see O\u2019Connor\u2019s meaning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Flannery O\u2019Connor writes stories of shocking encounters with Christ in order to convey to her readers that the world holds the opportunity for salvation, however, her Christian message is often misunderstood. The misunderstanding occurs when a reader’s horizon of expectations is not met, and O\u2019Connor\u2019s blunt and violent writing many times shocks her readers away from her message. For most readers, any message of grace is washed away by the devastating and abrupt ending of \u201cA Good Man is Hard to Find.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Works Cited<\/p>\n\n\n\n ISI Archive. \u201cFlannery O’Connor’s Writings: A Guide for the Perplexed.\u201d Intercollegiate Studies Institute: Think. Live Free.<\/em>, 8 Oct. 2014, isi.org\/modern-age\/flannery-oconnors-writings-a-guide-for-the-perplexed\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leonard, Douglas Novich. \u201cEXPERIENCING FLANNERY O’CONNOR’S \u2018A Good Man Is Hard To Find.\u2019\u201d Interpretations<\/em>, vol. 4, no. 2, 1983, pp. 48\u201354., doi:https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/23241513<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mambrol, Nasrullah. \u201cKey Theories of Hans Robert Jauss.\u201d Literary Theory and Criticism<\/em>, 1 Feb. 2018, literariness.org\/2018\/02\/01\/key-theories-of-hans-robert-jauss\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Palmer, Kiley. “A Good Man is Hard to Find: Critical Text Analysis and Summary.” IvyPanda<\/em>, 20 Dec. 2019, ivypanda.com\/essays\/a-good-man-is-hard-to-find-critical-text-analysis-and-summary\/. Accessed 17 Apr. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Purdue Writing Lab. \u201cReader-Response Criticism \/\/ Purdue Writing Lab.\u201d Purdue Writing Lab, Purdue University, owl.purdue.edu\/owl\/subject_specific_writing\/writing_in_literature\/literary_theory_and_schools_of_criticism\/reader_response_criticism.html.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Violent and gruesome TV shows like \u201cThe Walking Dead\u201d and \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d stir up emotions and shock audiences with plot twists that get people talking for days, but Flannery O\u2019Connor\u2019s \u201cA Good Man is Hard to Find\u201d has such a shocking and violent plot twist that readers have been discussing it for decades. Born … Continue reading “Flannery O\u2019Connor\u2019s \u201cA Good Man is Hard to Find\u201d: Shocking Generations or Inspiring Christianity?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":12,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"page-full-width.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":586,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16\/revisions\/586"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/alainasalas.knight.domains\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/image.png\")
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