Flannery O’Connor has written about many subjects that defied the common ideology of her society at the time, like misogyny and ways to improve women’s rights. She wrote stories that have meaning towards her ideas and that show the importance of them, and she did so within her own fictitious tales instead of taking a direct approach and write a dissertation on her thoughts. In one of her famous short stories, “Good Country People”, she discusses the topic of identity within the plot of it and is meant to give the reader a sense of her ideology. Flannery O’Connor essentially uses identity as a theme in this short story to depict her beliefs towards the real world and emphasize problems, like the injustice of women and the trust between the people
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Take for example the character Mrs. Hopewell, whose name is a play on words and means she profound optimist and hopes for the better and sees the good of the world and describes herself as a “good country person”. One of the main conflicts within the story is, how should one be able to know who a “good country person” is? To able to identify yourself as this what must one be in order to achieve this alias. Like the name describes it states that the person is “good”, but what actions, personality, character, etc. does one need get in order to become a “good”. An example can be, if you behave kind and ethical to someone you might be seen as “good”, but if you are rude and disrespectful to somebody that another person dislikes, that other individual might find you as a “good” person even though if you are not “good” to the person you just talked badly towards. The idea of what an individual’s identity truly is can be different in relation to other people and can be changed due to different perspectives (Bosco, 2005). For instance,something as simple as being born in the south can make you a “country person”, but for others it could be having a farm life and living out in the open pasture to be considered a “country person”. Because of this, an individual can be identified in more than one way by other people, which is one of the subjects Flannery …show more content…
These norms created by society, mainly men, overpower the voices of others and downright negate their opportunity to make a change even if it has benefits. A main example Flannery O’Connor emphasizes is the ideology of the male chauvinist that has been used for many years and let women only be in control of men. Ideas like women should be pure and wait until marriage and should not be allowed to divorce and can only be a stay at home mother to clean and maintain the household and the children is commonly heard during the author’s time period, but she didn’t like this it limited her and other women to fulfill their personal identity become something like a doctor or an engineer (Smith, 1994). The author uses many female protagonists in her works to display the change needed for women to be able to what they want to do with their lives and not do what the majority tells them to do. Flannery O’Connor exemplifies this in “Good Country People” by using Hulga, who has a PhD in Philosophy, and Mrs. Hopewell, an individual who follows the social norm at the time, and shows that Mrs. Hopewell is disappointed with her degree as it is not a career that is known specifically to women, like a nurse, veterinarian, office assistant, etc (Smith, 1994). Other way O’Connor represents this issue is with
Take for example the character Mrs. Hopewell, whose name is a play on words and means she profound optimist and hopes for the better and sees the good of the world and describes herself as a “good country person”. One of the main conflicts within the story is, how should one be able to know who a “good country person” is? To able to identify yourself as this what must one be in order to achieve this alias. Like the name describes it states that the person is “good”, but what actions, personality, character, etc. does one need get in order to become a “good”. An example can be, if you behave kind and ethical to someone you might be seen as “good”, but if you are rude and disrespectful to somebody that another person dislikes, that other individual might find you as a “good” person even though if you are not “good” to the person you just talked badly towards. The idea of what an individual’s identity truly is can be different in relation to other people and can be changed due to different perspectives (Bosco, 2005). For instance,something as simple as being born in the south can make you a “country person”, but for others it could be having a farm life and living out in the open pasture to be considered a “country person”. Because of this, an individual can be identified in more than one way by other people, which is one of the subjects Flannery …show more content…
These norms created by society, mainly men, overpower the voices of others and downright negate their opportunity to make a change even if it has benefits. A main example Flannery O’Connor emphasizes is the ideology of the male chauvinist that has been used for many years and let women only be in control of men. Ideas like women should be pure and wait until marriage and should not be allowed to divorce and can only be a stay at home mother to clean and maintain the household and the children is commonly heard during the author’s time period, but she didn’t like this it limited her and other women to fulfill their personal identity become something like a doctor or an engineer (Smith, 1994). The author uses many female protagonists in her works to display the change needed for women to be able to what they want to do with their lives and not do what the majority tells them to do. Flannery O’Connor exemplifies this in “Good Country People” by using Hulga, who has a PhD in Philosophy, and Mrs. Hopewell, an individual who follows the social norm at the time, and shows that Mrs. Hopewell is disappointed with her degree as it is not a career that is known specifically to women, like a nurse, veterinarian, office assistant, etc (Smith, 1994). Other way O’Connor represents this issue is with