Short Story Essay Assignment
Setting is the stage for a story. Without setting, characters are simply there without any purpose or motive. Without setting there is no story. Setting is time and place, but also much more than that. When an author uses setting to their advantage they are able to create many literary effects. Setting can help set mood, foreshadow events, reflect and influence characters, and create tension. In the short stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Good Country People,” Flannery O’Connor plays around with setting a great deal. O’Connor successfully uses setting in her writing to create stories full of irony, foreshadowing and symbolism that create pieces of literature with multiple layers for the readers to discover. …show more content…
O’Connor uses setting as the set up for her ironic writing. In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” The grandmother makes it clear to the reader that she is a lady and wants to be seen as one. O’Connor writes “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (“Good Man” 92). When the grandmother comes face to face with The Misfit she somewhat abandons her need to be seen as a lady. Moments before her death, she calls The Misfit her son and sympathizes with him. The grandmother at the start of the story would never call The Misfit her son, she is too much of a lady for that. In the short story “Good Country People,” Mrs. Hopewell speaks about how boring and simple Manley, the bible salesmen is. She says “He was so simple, but I guess the world would be better off if we were all that simple” (O’Connor, “Country People” 17). In reality Manley is not simple at all, he is a very complicated con man and the world should not be more like him. By Mrs. Hopewell saying this she creates the element of irony. O’Connor’s use of irony as a literary device makes the reader think about something and emphasizes a point in the
Setting is the stage for a story. Without setting, characters are simply there without any purpose or motive. Without setting there is no story. Setting is time and place, but also much more than that. When an author uses setting to their advantage they are able to create many literary effects. Setting can help set mood, foreshadow events, reflect and influence characters, and create tension. In the short stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Good Country People,” Flannery O’Connor plays around with setting a great deal. O’Connor successfully uses setting in her writing to create stories full of irony, foreshadowing and symbolism that create pieces of literature with multiple layers for the readers to discover. …show more content…
O’Connor uses setting as the set up for her ironic writing. In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” The grandmother makes it clear to the reader that she is a lady and wants to be seen as one. O’Connor writes “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (“Good Man” 92). When the grandmother comes face to face with The Misfit she somewhat abandons her need to be seen as a lady. Moments before her death, she calls The Misfit her son and sympathizes with him. The grandmother at the start of the story would never call The Misfit her son, she is too much of a lady for that. In the short story “Good Country People,” Mrs. Hopewell speaks about how boring and simple Manley, the bible salesmen is. She says “He was so simple, but I guess the world would be better off if we were all that simple” (O’Connor, “Country People” 17). In reality Manley is not simple at all, he is a very complicated con man and the world should not be more like him. By Mrs. Hopewell saying this she creates the element of irony. O’Connor’s use of irony as a literary device makes the reader think about something and emphasizes a point in the