A Comparison Of Four Southern Gothic Short Stories

Improved Essays
Within the southern gothic writing style it is common to read of the use of macabre, or grotesque events. Such events are easily identified in four particular short stories by O’ Connor. These short stories that all have southern gothic styles are as follows A Good Man is Hard to Find, Good country People, Everything That Rises Must Converge, and Revelation. But out of these four stories only two of them A Good Man is Hard to Find, and Good country People have this way of highlighting the wrongs within Religion and enlarging them to challenge Religion and the hypocrisy within. Often times in these short stories nobody is what they claim to be or think they are, and do not stand for what they claim.
In short story A Good Man is Hard to Find

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    While foreshadowing, irony, and symbolism each work the story from different directions, each device ties into the idea that pride comes before the fall. O’Connor’s stories are grim and violent, and the use of foreshadowing helps to build a unique aura around “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” As the story leads up to the climax, O’Connor inserted several hints as to the eventual outcome of the family’s trip. Rather than prematurely reveal the ending of the…

    • 1075 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    O’Brien’s usage of rhetorical elements such as narration from different point of views (which is “made up” or exaggerated) and several rhetorical techniques provide support to the various arguments he makes in his work of The Things They Carried. The rhetorical mode of this book is mainly narration. It is made up of the viewpoints of several different characters and the story that follows. This “jumping” of several viewpoints is one of the things he argues about; and that is, the fact that “story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth (171).”, according to him. This ideology is evident in his work because the narrations are almost all “made up”.…

    • 1077 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    American Literature shaped the Southern Gothic Genre by exploring the south and criticizing the moral blindness of the south. Disturbed personalities, macabre situations, and moral blindness are the traits of the Southern Gothic Genre. A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O'Connor, The Possibility of Evil by Shirley Jackson, and A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner had held the traits of Southern Gothic Literature. Southern Gothic is portrayed through the character and situations within the stories.(Work on)…

    • 432 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    From deals with the devil, corrupt churches, and the decaying body of a lifeless baby, Matthew Lewis’s The Monk is the paradigm of the gothic novel. The main setting of the novel is the church, a place of barbaric and inhumane practices. Deep in the dungeons are prison cells for deviating nuns who are starved and tormented by the head nuns. The Monk, title role of the novel, belongs to the main character who is perhaps the most malevolent and cruel.…

    • 1177 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Much of Contemporary Literature finds itself between ‘something’ and ‘nothing.’ The ‘something’ which gives purpose or meaning, but the ‘nothing’ negates the ‘something’ and then draws these characters back into the nothingness of modernity. Both “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” written by Flannery O’Connor and “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” by James Tiptree Jr. focus on on the “too” much, or a cataclysmic event that in turn draw the reader and characters back to the nothingness. Essentially, these texts stress that horrific events are going to occur without any purpose or reasoning to explain the “why” of it.…

    • 1668 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gothic Short Stories

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages

    “Pew-pew-pew--chk-chk”, were the sounds going back and forth from two innocent and audacious children playing in the backyard. Until they noticed a queer view between the wooden spaced fence. Matt’s orbital is tremendously keen, so he noticed a filthy pool behind a dilapidated house as he pressed his frontal into the fence. Within seconds, it aroused his sense of curiosity.…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Are There Any Good Men Out There? “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, written by Flannery O’ Connor is the one to read. This story is very interesting but a bit rare. The view point of this story is very different from what some may think. While reading this story I noticed three literary devices being used.…

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gothic Short Stories

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Her blood runs ice-cold as the slam of the front door shakes the delicate frame of the house and threatens to bring it crumbling down . NO, NO, NO. He is home. He is a monster.…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Introduction: Flannery O’Connor ambitiously sets out to make a reader face the grotesque nature of society and all it’s commonly concealed evils. In “Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction” Flannery O’Connor refers to herself as a “realist of distances.” Which means in order for her to explore the difficult and mysterious aspects of human existence she exaggerates the characters and ideas created in her stories. She considers the truly grotesque aspects of writing to be the most realistic. The reader should not recognize the grotesque as entertainment; its purpose is not fascination.…

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gothic Short Stories

    • 1028 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The first room was illuminated by a foul fluorescent light peeking through the shattered light bulbs. The wind whistled through the holes of the crumbled bookshelves. Book lay there, it was as if they knew they were unwanted and discarded; gathering dust just like the bodies of rats sprawled out on the floor; giving a sickly scent of mildew. Spikes of Fungus pierced the bodies like hot knives did through butter! Looking up I could see a riddle on the wall: "what's ahead of you, but you can't see it?"…

    • 1028 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It was very late at night. I was not a hundred percent sure what time it was. If I were to guess, I would say that it was 11:30. As I was thinking to myself, I said "Wow it is really late I need to go to bed". As I was getting ready to lie down I heard a loud bang.…

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gothic Short Stories

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The narrow stone street was overshadowed by the tall yellow buildings on either side that weren’t shy about hiding their age. There were trees that grew in places that didn’t have buildings, and those trees also provided shadows on the street. In spite of all this darkness, the street was actually quite beautiful. The buildings, trees, and road all meshed together to form a picturesque and breathtaking view. There was beauty in that street, but the vast majority of the denizens of this city didn’t even know about it.…

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Imagery and Inhabitants of the House of Usher American gothic literature is known for its focus on the capacity for human evil. While gothic literature has that central idea different authors interpret human evil in different ways. For instance Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher is a fine example of the common gothic traits of insanity and human corruption. Poe’s tone of doom and fear controlling and affecting every aspect of a person’s life is best illustrated when examining the imagery and character traits he uses.…

    • 855 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Misfit Sermon Analysis

    • 1264 Words
    • 6 Pages

    O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. 6th ed. Eds.…

    • 1264 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Flannery O’Connor once said “I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil” (“Flannery O’Connor Quotes”). She was the author of several different short stories; among them one can find “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Revelation.” These two short stories share similar content, ideas, and structure; however, they are certainly different in other ways. O’Connor’s life allows the reader to make conclusions about why her short stories were written the way they were. She was a Southern gothic writer, who lived in the state of Georgia from 1925 until her death in 1964.…

    • 1893 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays