She fictionalized some of the most country-shaping movements of our modern history, bringing voices to the unseen and the uncomfortable. She was unflinching in her work, as well as her commentary on such. On the content of her work, she was quoted, "The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." What a BAMF. (Sorry for the language, Catherine) While dealing with incredibly heavy subjects like sexuality, sexism, racism, religion and more, O'Connor's work is never heavy handed. She doesn't villainize or victimize a single character, refusing to let her readers take the easy way out and choose a good versus bad character to love or hate. Everyone is redeemable, everyone is questionable, everyone is complex. This, I think, is what makes her short stories so perfectly reflect human nature.
What characters in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", "Everything That Rises Must Converge" and "Good Country People" did you feel the most conflicted over? Who did you want to dislike, but sympathized with in the end, or vice versa? Most importantly, how did O'Connor evolve these characters as you read? Find specific moments/lines that support your idea of each character, whether it caused, confirmed, or conflicted with your initial opinion.
(You don't need to respond to this specifically in the blog, but be aware of how she balances drama with subtlety. These stories' plots have "big" moments, murder or theft combined with an all-consuming epiphany or divine intervention [O'Connor was raised Roman Catholic and drew heavily from Gothic literature]. However, those plot moments never actually overtake the emotional resonance of the piece. The what never overshadows the who. We're going to talk in class on how the characters exist through the plot versus the story (like the 2nd subject in nonfiction), so be mindful of that as you read!)
In "Everything that Rises Must Converge" I find myself conflicted about who I should have more sympathy for, and who I should dislike. Both of our main characters, Julian and his mother, are fully rounded people, with foibles and strengths. I started the story feeling sympathetic to Julian, because he's the character that seems more sympathetic to a liberal audience, college educated, trying to avoid being racist, and slightly disillusioned with how the world works. Because of this, when he starts describing his mother as childlike, and because of her ambivalence towards such small things as her hat, I was predisposed to dislike her, which was only reinforced when she starts talking about their family history, and about their slave-owning history proudly. However, Julian is the one that seems more bitter about the loss of that history, with his ruminations about how, "he preferred its threadbare elegance to anything he could name and it was because of it that all the neighborhoods they had lived in had been a torment to him" (911). This is our first signal that Julian isn't the 'good guy'. Our opinion of him is further complicated when he thinks, "he had cut himself emotionally free of her and could see her with complete objectivity." (913) While he frames this as a good thing, it reads as the opposite, especially given the phrase, "blinded by love for her." There is nothing long with choosing love, with choosing joy where you can find it, which is what the mother appears to be doing. This is furthered by his detailing of all the things that his mother sacrificed to send him to college, which makes his lack of empathy for her seem worse. Through and after the bus ride, they both behaved badly, her with her racist attitudes, and him with his lecturing and scolding her to the point where she has a medical emergency (it's implied to be a stroke or something with her blood pressure.) I end the story feeling sympathetic towards them both. His mother is the product of her time, and while that isn't an excuse, she's also shouldering her changed circumstances with some modicum of grace and success. Julian isn't racist, but he's also unempathetic. They're both good characters, but not especially good people, but they're both trying to be good people which is what makes them interesting.
ReplyDeleteIn almost all of these stories, you feel conflicted over all of the characters regarding likability. Specifically, in "A Good Man is Hard to Find", you hate the grandmother and don't really like the family very much either. But when they are put in mortal danger, you begin to feel sorry for them despite still being unlikable characters.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good thing because even though you might not like them, you still feel something for them. In the conversations that the grandmother has in the end, you learn more about her and your opinion of her evolves. It keeps the readers surprised, even after the inevitably tragic outcome.
The thing about O'Connor's stories is that she outright refuses to let you simply hate or love someone in her stories. It would be easy to let a character's negative qualities become the shining hallmark of their presence in her pieces, but she always strive to make the reader feel pity, at the least, and sympathy (or even empathy), at the most. And she does this by making these characters vulnerable and having them fall apart.
ReplyDeleteIn "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," it would be easy to see the grandmother as 'just a racist,' but throughout the story the reader learns little details about her - her love of cats, her own anxiety at her failing memory - and at the end of the story when she is pleading for her and her family's life in the only she knows how, you can't help but feel for her. Even the Misfit himself, as despicable as his actions are, is clearly given a character in his interactions with the grandmother that paint him as someone to pity.
"Everything That Rises Must Converge" (one of my favorite stories everywhere) also uses the reality of old age and mortality to make you feel sympathy for the mother while also pulling apart Julian's character, rather than having him be the 'woke son' or the 'ungrateful, hypocritical son." It lets him be a bit of both.
"Good Country People" does something similar, but rather than delving into the specific characters in the same way she does her other pieces, she works over the mindset and societal structures at play that made these people. Hulga becoming Hulga, her mother's insistent sayings, and (not) Pointer's everything are in response to the way the world is for them, so even if they do things that are annoying or despicable its exposed in a fuller context. And the more you know, the harder it is to make a judgement.
I didn't have any character specifically that I felt the most conflicted over, but like Sage, it was sort of a general feeling about all of them. I think these stories were a wonderful example of breaking tropes and stereotypes. She has a wonderful knack for creating real-world characters that are round and multisided. They are not just there to further the plot, but they all have stories to tell and places they came from. Each character has their own way of viewing the world, their own experiences which influence how they interact with the world around them.
ReplyDeleteI relate this to the modern-day villain. In traditional villain stereotype, they are completely unlikable. This trope has begun to be broken, because in real life, it's rare that someone is and remains completely unlikable. Often, characters who are meant to be seen as villainous have redeeming moments that make it difficult to call them completely villain. One of the biggest examples I can think of that represents this is Billy from Stranger Things. I won't ruin anything, but he reveals himself as a multisided character throughout the series, and viewers are drawn to care about him in some shape or form.
Since Richard is MIA with our copy of 3x33, I don't have any direct quotes or details, but the story that stuck out to me the most as giving me this conflict of likability was "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," and with the grandmother. At first, she reminded me of most old women I'd met--cranky, racist, hard to be around. I felt bad for the characters for having to deal with her, though it didn't really specifically show their annoyance. However, I knew that if it were me, I'd be driven insane. However, as time went on and the events with the car accident and the bandit men unfolded, I slowly learned more about her character, and realized something about her and about old women in general--they have soft sides. They appear cold and unfeeling because that's what life does to you. Especially with generations nowadays (which doesn't exactly apply to the story and its time, but it's interesting to think about), the Baby Boomer generation was raised to be non-deserving. (Which might be why they often say millennials are "entitled"). It's almost as if they don't feel they deserve to or have to right to have feelings, so they don't show them. (At least in my experience. And yes, I have worked in retail, and seen the older people who think they are entitled to do whatever they so please, but that might be a product of a non-deserving concept as well, in some strange way). The grandmother says a lot of unlikable things, but at the end of the day, she is just a product of how she was raised and how the world has treated her, and sometimes, the world is unforgiving.
ReplyDeleteIn “A Good Man is Hard to Find” I really disliked the grandmother from the beginning of the story. I had very little sympathy for her even though I had sympathy for her, if that makes any sense at all. I could be wrong, but this first story struck me as a commentary on stubborn nostalgia and romanticizing the past when the past was really never as great as you thought it was.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised and intrigued by the twist in the story and I really do love the very human complexity that O’Connor brings to her characters. I thought for a little while that the murders might not kill the family, and I held out hope until they were all dead. This is due, I think, to the personality and humanity O’Connor brings to the Misfit in conversation with the grandmother. You see him as a real person from a good family and it reminds you that killers are just real people turned bad, but who you can still see and talk to as real people. And that’s the most terrifying part of human nature. It’s also masterful writing to give me sympathy for a gang of murderers.
I didn't really feel conflicted over any of the characters. The way O' Connor handle each character just kind of pointed out how flawed people can be. In "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", the grandmother stood out to me for this reason. While the reader is set up to hate the grandmother, but once you find out little details about her (ex: anxiety over her failing memory), then the reader can be persuaded to think she's not that bad.
ReplyDeleteI kind of related this to how Marvel does their villains. What Marvel does so well is making their villains flawed to the point where viewers root for them. If you're a Thor fan, think of Loki. He's supposed to be hated because he's the bad guy, but once you learn more about him it's hard to dislike him. I think O'Connor handles her characters in a similar fashion, which is why her stories are so enjoyable.