The Contemporaries
St. Cyril of Jerusalem once professed, “The dragon is by the side of the road, watching those who pass. Beware lest he devour you, we go to the father of souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.” Flannery O'Connor believed that pride, one of the seven cardinal sins of the Catholic faith, is the root of all sin. In other words, O'Connor observed that vices are only committed as a result of one's inflated sense of self-appeasement. In her view, pride reveals itself as the ultimate dragon, tempting its prey to the iniquities of sin. O'Connor's stories often reflected her assumptions about human nature. In Flannery O’Connor’s short stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” and “The Displaced Person,” the author centralizes each story around the characters' symbolic temptations of pride.
In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, O'Connor illustrates the grandmother's frequent encounter with the sin of pride. The author alludes to the grandmother's habitual abuse of humility several times throughout the course of the story. To begin, O'Connor depicts the grandmother wearing her Sunday clothes for a road trip, "in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady" (O'Connor 8). Toward the end …show more content…
In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the grandmother possesses a damaging inclination to pride, the source of her sin. Likewise, pride is the symbolic dragon within Mr. Shiflet in “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” Finally, Mrs. McIntyre’s disposition to the sin of pride subsists through her materialism and superiority. While O’Connor regards pride as the source of all sin, she makes note that one can resist such temptations through the abundant graces of Jesus
St. Cyril of Jerusalem once professed, “The dragon is by the side of the road, watching those who pass. Beware lest he devour you, we go to the father of souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.” Flannery O'Connor believed that pride, one of the seven cardinal sins of the Catholic faith, is the root of all sin. In other words, O'Connor observed that vices are only committed as a result of one's inflated sense of self-appeasement. In her view, pride reveals itself as the ultimate dragon, tempting its prey to the iniquities of sin. O'Connor's stories often reflected her assumptions about human nature. In Flannery O’Connor’s short stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” and “The Displaced Person,” the author centralizes each story around the characters' symbolic temptations of pride.
In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, O'Connor illustrates the grandmother's frequent encounter with the sin of pride. The author alludes to the grandmother's habitual abuse of humility several times throughout the course of the story. To begin, O'Connor depicts the grandmother wearing her Sunday clothes for a road trip, "in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady" (O'Connor 8). Toward the end …show more content…
In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the grandmother possesses a damaging inclination to pride, the source of her sin. Likewise, pride is the symbolic dragon within Mr. Shiflet in “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” Finally, Mrs. McIntyre’s disposition to the sin of pride subsists through her materialism and superiority. While O’Connor regards pride as the source of all sin, she makes note that one can resist such temptations through the abundant graces of Jesus