Blair Emsick
Mrs. Martinez
AP Literature and Composition
February 7, 2010
Writing About Writing
Writing has been a constant wonderful force in my life since a very young age. Writing, I believe is a way to harness the imagination, into its most productive or even its most destructive form. Writing helps unleash the clausterphobic, choking on hot air, soul inside all of us and gives us a breath of fresh air. Being a writer is a lifestyle choice, it demands constant and careful attention. Writing has shown a different world to me, a whole different way of looking at things and the people around me. Writing has enlarged my mind, and made me who I am today. I feel that many people these days think of writing as a daunting mechanical task, I stronly urge that writing is not so, writing has this captivating livliness that is hard to let go of.
When I was a small child I always said when I wanted to grow up I wanted to be an author, not a writer an author. I wrote short stories that received much praise from my parents and teachers and had a very elementary view on writing. It wasn't until the fifth grade that I really wrote my first poem. I remember reading the book Lizzie At Last by Claudia Mills. The main character Lizzie is this out of the ordinary girl who writes poetry all the time, I wanted to be just like her and so I began writing poetry. From that point on I was constantly writing in my diary, constantly just writing. Writing made me feel important, it made me feel like I had something really important to say, and that even if people wouldn't listen the page would.
In middle school I kept two notebooks one for my diary and one for just writing down mindless thoughts that popped into my head, like doodling for the mind. Writing became a part of who I was, but it really wasn't until my sophomore year in high school when I began to take writing really seriously. I enrolled in Mr. Larson's Creative Writing class and that class really helped me through my sophomore, junior, and even this year. Mr. Larson requires us to write 10 pages a week with various assignments throughout the week. Writing that amount every week really began to change who I was. It is so hard to try to describe it, with each word I wrote I felt like I was growing into a stronger more mature person. Writing made me feel special, it still makes me feel special I have something that I am good at, or that makes me feel good anyways.
Writing has this power, it's indescribable really. I find whenever I am confused about something a situation or a person, when I'm angry, or sad I write and it has this way of calming me down. Taking the edge off of my spirits. One of our assignments for Creative Writing was to read Natalie Goldberg's book Writing Down The Bones. It's basically an extended version of this personal essay. In one chapter Goldberg writes about this exact phenomenon how writing is like a drug, it can make you feel better, but with no bad after effects. She talked about how maybe alcoholics drink because inside there's a writer waiting to be unleashed and the resistance to the inner writer is making them drink. It's an interesting theory true or not.
Writing also has this profound power over a person, because on the page one can be whoever they want to be, say whatever the want to say, and do whatever the want to do. I can be a greek soldier fighting in the trojan war, or I can be Einstein if I want to, all I have to do is find the right words to say. Although it is probably best not to get wrapped up in a fantasy world and lose your grip on reality, I have been there, it is not healthy. Writing I hope will continue to be suge a huge part of me and my life. Writing is my muse, my therapy, my life, me.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
AP Government Blair Emsick
9th hour February 3rd, 2010
Supreme Court
John G. Roberts is the current Chief Justice of the United States. He was born January 27, 1955 in Buffola, New York and was appointed by George W. Bush after the death of William Rehnquist. Originally Roberts was appointed to take the place of Sandra Day O’Connor who had resigned but then Chief Justice William Rehnquist died and George W. Bush decided to appoint Roberts for that position instead.
blehhhh
9th hour February 3rd, 2010
Supreme Court
John G. Roberts is the current Chief Justice of the United States. He was born January 27, 1955 in Buffola, New York and was appointed by George W. Bush after the death of William Rehnquist. Originally Roberts was appointed to take the place of Sandra Day O’Connor who had resigned but then Chief Justice William Rehnquist died and George W. Bush decided to appoint Roberts for that position instead.
blehhhh
Monday, February 1, 2010
Sarah Emsick
Mrs. martinez
AP English Literature and Composition
January 2010
Reflecting O'Connor's Writing
When one is getting ready to go on a family road trip or to the doctors they don't think about they danger that they will find there, they only think about how long the car ride is going to be or how much the visit to the doctor is going to cost them. In Flannery O'Connor's novels and short stories she puts a spin on an average day, on an average family, or what people would like to believe average is. She forces her readers to see the different sides of her characters and people, that not everyone is perfectly happy, some people are lost without direction. O'Connor uses three themes in her novels that one would think never fit together to ask the questions of moral values and faith, her Catholic values and tragic side are all pulled together with a comic relief.
For a writer with such brilliant stories, and such a different approach, one would think that the writer would have a very exciting life themselves, but in truth looking back on her life, O'Connor kept to herself. She was all about her writing and her religion. She really valued her Roman Catholic roots and became one of the first writers to us her religion in her novels in an interesting way, one might say that she was writing religious fiction. O'Connor was quoted saying “ Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not.”, weather her critics believe in her faith or like her style of writing, she really doesn't care because she is not changing her views. O'Connor was from the South and religion was an important factor. Raised a Roman Catholic, O'Connor was Born on March 25, 1925 in Savannah, Georgia. Mary O'Connor was an only child and often had to find her own fun around the family farm, Her Father was diagnosed with the rare blood disease lupus, the disease was hereditary in the family and her father soon died from the disease. The family moved back to Milledgeville, where her mother had grown up and O'Connor attended schooling there. After O'Connor graduated in 1942, she started up at Georgia State College For Women, after graduating in 1945, she moved on to a Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, she began to study journalism while there. O'Connor rarely left the Bible belt south, she didn't travel much, her life and works were focused on the religious south. O'Connor's life was cut short when she, like her father, had inherited the disease lupus. When she was diagnosed she returned home to live out her years with her closest friend and family, her mother.
O'Connor uses fiction and spiritual life to show her characters in a bright light, to show the reader all of their conflicts and flaws within themselves. The reader can in some weird way relate to the characters that O'Connor creates throughout her stories, even though while one is reading, the situation seems crazy. Even though O'Connor's own life was quite uneventful, her stories bring out a side of her that no one knew she had in her, she shocks the crowd with the intense and thrilling tales. O'Connor lived such a regular and normal life, but when she wrote her stories and novels, she came to life... the life that she saw around her maybe, or maybe she wrote just to inform people of their wrong ways. O'Connor wrote, “I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.”,she believed that writing was her greatest strength and it really is true, sure she lived on the farm and was good at feeding the chickens and such, but when it came to writing there is nothing that she could do wrong. Everything just seems to come together in the end in her novels, it's like a big climax and the reader will never truly know the ending until they have seen it for themselves. Her dark comedy, often called; grotesque, cold, and bizarre, are her way of showing the world her thoughts on the moral values that stand. Using her characterss, like the grandmother, she gives the aduiance someone they can followthroughoutt the story and attach themselves to, relate to and understand. The characters in Flannery O'Connor's stories are not weird scary characters, or made up characters with weird lives, they are regular families, or what they think is normal. In a way it gives hope to the reader that not every family, other than theirs, is perfect, that everyone has their flaws and problems, some people are just better at hiding their flaws than others. In O'Connor's stories, she doesn't let her characters hide in the dark anymore, it's almost as if she is shinning a light on them from above, forcing them to spill their guts. Almost all of the characters enjoy hiding behind religion and its safe cover, but when the characters are brought into the bright light of O'Connor's stories the reader finds that most only fall back on religion as a safety belt, as a an accessory in their lives. In O'Connor's short stories she makes a point of her characters who judge one another, that is all the characters seem to do, as if to say, this is what the world is like today judging someone before you even know them. In “Good Country People”, “A Good man is Hard to Find”, and “Revelation”, the characters are put in uncomfortable situations and so they begin to judge the situation and the surrounding. The Grandmother, in “A Good man is Hard to Find”, just knows that she is a good lady, a good southern lady, why would anyone ever want to hurt her, but when she finally realizes who the misfit is she starts judging herself, her upbringing, “Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!”, and the Misfit just shots her because he knows that she would never be a good southern lady, and neither would he... but he is the one with the gun.
Flannel O'Connor is pretty much the craziest writer that I have encounter so far in my short lifetime. Her style of blending her strong faith and her passion for writing just blows my mind. Most writers have two separate lives, their family and faith, and their writing. But O'Connor took all elements of her life and she took it and wrote about it. She didn't want to hind from the world like her characters, she wanted to deliver a message to her readers and all of her stories come out pretty loud. Yes, the world is not perfect, but why hide, why lie and cheat, why judge. O'Connor may have a cold way of looking at the world, but at least her way is true and real, and not some made up fairy tale. When O'Connor ends her stories, it's like a slap in the face, the statement and facts are all right in front of you and O'Connor just wants show the reader the light.
Works Cited
Brainy Ouotes. BrainyMedia.com, 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2010
Galloway, Patrick. "The Dark Side of the Cross: Flannery O'Connor's Short Fiction." PatWeb. Patrick Galloway, 1996. Web. 31 Jan. 2010.
Liukkonen, Petri. "Flannery O'Connor." 2008. Web. 29 Jan. 2010
Mrs. martinez
AP English Literature and Composition
January 2010
Reflecting O'Connor's Writing
When one is getting ready to go on a family road trip or to the doctors they don't think about they danger that they will find there, they only think about how long the car ride is going to be or how much the visit to the doctor is going to cost them. In Flannery O'Connor's novels and short stories she puts a spin on an average day, on an average family, or what people would like to believe average is. She forces her readers to see the different sides of her characters and people, that not everyone is perfectly happy, some people are lost without direction. O'Connor uses three themes in her novels that one would think never fit together to ask the questions of moral values and faith, her Catholic values and tragic side are all pulled together with a comic relief.
For a writer with such brilliant stories, and such a different approach, one would think that the writer would have a very exciting life themselves, but in truth looking back on her life, O'Connor kept to herself. She was all about her writing and her religion. She really valued her Roman Catholic roots and became one of the first writers to us her religion in her novels in an interesting way, one might say that she was writing religious fiction. O'Connor was quoted saying “ Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not.”, weather her critics believe in her faith or like her style of writing, she really doesn't care because she is not changing her views. O'Connor was from the South and religion was an important factor. Raised a Roman Catholic, O'Connor was Born on March 25, 1925 in Savannah, Georgia. Mary O'Connor was an only child and often had to find her own fun around the family farm, Her Father was diagnosed with the rare blood disease lupus, the disease was hereditary in the family and her father soon died from the disease. The family moved back to Milledgeville, where her mother had grown up and O'Connor attended schooling there. After O'Connor graduated in 1942, she started up at Georgia State College For Women, after graduating in 1945, she moved on to a Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, she began to study journalism while there. O'Connor rarely left the Bible belt south, she didn't travel much, her life and works were focused on the religious south. O'Connor's life was cut short when she, like her father, had inherited the disease lupus. When she was diagnosed she returned home to live out her years with her closest friend and family, her mother.
O'Connor uses fiction and spiritual life to show her characters in a bright light, to show the reader all of their conflicts and flaws within themselves. The reader can in some weird way relate to the characters that O'Connor creates throughout her stories, even though while one is reading, the situation seems crazy. Even though O'Connor's own life was quite uneventful, her stories bring out a side of her that no one knew she had in her, she shocks the crowd with the intense and thrilling tales. O'Connor lived such a regular and normal life, but when she wrote her stories and novels, she came to life... the life that she saw around her maybe, or maybe she wrote just to inform people of their wrong ways. O'Connor wrote, “I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.”,she believed that writing was her greatest strength and it really is true, sure she lived on the farm and was good at feeding the chickens and such, but when it came to writing there is nothing that she could do wrong. Everything just seems to come together in the end in her novels, it's like a big climax and the reader will never truly know the ending until they have seen it for themselves. Her dark comedy, often called; grotesque, cold, and bizarre, are her way of showing the world her thoughts on the moral values that stand. Using her characterss, like the grandmother, she gives the aduiance someone they can followthroughoutt the story and attach themselves to, relate to and understand. The characters in Flannery O'Connor's stories are not weird scary characters, or made up characters with weird lives, they are regular families, or what they think is normal. In a way it gives hope to the reader that not every family, other than theirs, is perfect, that everyone has their flaws and problems, some people are just better at hiding their flaws than others. In O'Connor's stories, she doesn't let her characters hide in the dark anymore, it's almost as if she is shinning a light on them from above, forcing them to spill their guts. Almost all of the characters enjoy hiding behind religion and its safe cover, but when the characters are brought into the bright light of O'Connor's stories the reader finds that most only fall back on religion as a safety belt, as a an accessory in their lives. In O'Connor's short stories she makes a point of her characters who judge one another, that is all the characters seem to do, as if to say, this is what the world is like today judging someone before you even know them. In “Good Country People”, “A Good man is Hard to Find”, and “Revelation”, the characters are put in uncomfortable situations and so they begin to judge the situation and the surrounding. The Grandmother, in “A Good man is Hard to Find”, just knows that she is a good lady, a good southern lady, why would anyone ever want to hurt her, but when she finally realizes who the misfit is she starts judging herself, her upbringing, “Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!”, and the Misfit just shots her because he knows that she would never be a good southern lady, and neither would he... but he is the one with the gun.
Flannel O'Connor is pretty much the craziest writer that I have encounter so far in my short lifetime. Her style of blending her strong faith and her passion for writing just blows my mind. Most writers have two separate lives, their family and faith, and their writing. But O'Connor took all elements of her life and she took it and wrote about it. She didn't want to hind from the world like her characters, she wanted to deliver a message to her readers and all of her stories come out pretty loud. Yes, the world is not perfect, but why hide, why lie and cheat, why judge. O'Connor may have a cold way of looking at the world, but at least her way is true and real, and not some made up fairy tale. When O'Connor ends her stories, it's like a slap in the face, the statement and facts are all right in front of you and O'Connor just wants show the reader the light.
Works Cited
Brainy Ouotes. BrainyMedia.com, 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2010
Galloway, Patrick. "The Dark Side of the Cross: Flannery O'Connor's Short Fiction." PatWeb. Patrick Galloway, 1996. Web. 31 Jan. 2010.
Liukkonen, Petri. "Flannery O'Connor." 2008. Web. 29 Jan. 2010
Blair Emsick
Mrs. Martinez
AP Literature and Composition
February 1, 2010
The writings of Flannery O'Connor have an odd effect on the reader. She has a decisive and an almost strict narrative. The writing seems almost cold as she introduces characters and settings, but as O'Connor let's the story unfold the reader finds her stories practically impossible to put down. A common theme of O'Connor seems to be putting seemingly average and occasionally very out of the ordinary characters in completely outlandish situations. At first O'Connor's writing seems straight forward but taking a deeper look one finds themselves entrenched in imagery, symbolism, and hidden meanings. The most fascinating aspect of O'Connor's short stories is her characterization and her development of characters, Main and minor ones. In taking a deeper look at O'Connor's characters O'Connor seems to subtly reveal her desires, inhibitions, fears, beliefs, and even her flaws.
To really analyze O'Connor's writing and how it reflected her one must first take a look at her own life. Mary Flannery O'Connor was born on March 25th in Savannah, Georgia. O'Connor was raised a devout Catholic practiced this faith until her death. She lived in the south most of her life. What is so fascinating about Flannery O'Connor is her average lifestyle, and yet she had the ability to create such imaginative stories with such a depth and genius to them. O'Connor did not attend any superior universities either. She attended Georgia State College for Women and State University of Iowa. In 1951 she was a diagnosed with the rare blood disease Lupus, the same disease her father died of in 1938. She then returned to her families farm in Andalusia, Georgia and raised all kinds of birds especially peacocks. Burdened by the knowledge of her eminent death she spent the rest of her life on the farm writing a total of 32 short stories and 2 novels before her death in 1964 when she was only forty years old. O'Connor seems to be such a complex character, she lived such an ordinary life and yet had the ability to illustrate such out of the ordinary tales of life and death.
In O'Connor's short stories one aspect that is constantly present is her strange yet familiar characters. Characterization is always an interesting aspect in short stories, mainly because it is practically impossible for full development of character. There is something absent in character development in short stories compared to full length novels. What isn't said about a particular character is left for the reader to infer, which almost entices the reader even more. For instance in Flannery O'Connor's short story “Good Country People” one of the main characters Hulga is left alone legless in the attic of a barn. Many times O'Connor leaves her characters lives and the paths there on open ended inviting the reader to think just a little bit deeper. Although in the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the main characters the grandmother, Bailey, the mother and children are all shot the villain in the story “The Misfit” he is called is left with his two wing-men to continue on down the road in the deep south. Why does O'Connor seem to do leave the end open with her characters time and time again in her short stories, did she feel her life was left open ended? She spent a good portion of her life with the knowledge of her own death, in O'Connor's short stories strange outlandish things happen quickly and unexpectedly to surface characters. Is this a reflection of O'Connor's own life? She was on a great literary path with a great literary legacy to be made, and yet it was cut short because of her disease. Although she did leave quite a literary legacy many aspects regarding O'Connor's beliefs and life are left open ended.
There seems to be a few main themes in Flannery O'Connor's short stories that are illustrated in her characters. There is obviously the huge theme of religion in her short stories, and the traditional southern values that comes from living in the south for a person's whole life. Then there seems to be the common device of O'Connor to create very average simple very southern and often Catholic characters.
In the end these characters seemed to be flawed, deceived by the people around them and their own disillusion and undergo an intense experience. O'Connor's characters seem to reflect many of her values and beliefs. She almost satirizes the Catholic faith in many of her stories. One would think she was criticizing the religion with her characters especially Mrs. Turpin from the short story “Revelation” but in fact she was a very devout Catholic. Unlike the characters in her stories it seems Flannery O'Connor had a very deep understanding of her faith, it was something very dear to her, and she was able to look at it from an outside perspective and criticize the flaws in it. Mrs. Turpin was a person very quick to judge. Judging the white trash people around her, the African American boy, and the demon like adolescent girl Mary Grace. In looking at Mrs. Turpin and O'Connor's characters from other stories such as Mrs. Hopewell, Mrs. Freeman from “Good Country People”, and even the grandmother from “A Good Man is Hard to Find. I believe that O'Connor really resented this aspect of her religion, the quickness to judge those who seem beneath others. She wasn't criticizing Catholicism itself but rather the misconstrued beliefs and disillusioned norms tied together with it.
Another major common theme found in O'Connor's stories is her attitudes toward men We know very little about O'Connor's attitude towards men. O'Connor never married and in analyzing her writing it seems she showed little desire to be married. Although it seems a minor aspect of her writing, her attitude towards men, it is apparent especially in her characterization of her male characters. First of all it seems the majority of her male characters are either very minor and boring or completely demented and deranged. We can see this in her characters such as the Misfit, the demented and deranged man, and Bailey, the average family man with no interesting qualities what so ever in the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. In the short story “Good Country People” there is the at first very agreeable bible selling nice young man, Sharp Shooter, in the end he turns out to be almost as demented and deranged as the Misfit. Seducing the main character Hulga and stealing her leg! The only other man mentioned in the story is Mrs. Freeman's husband, like Bailey very average and boring. In “Revelation” the only man we see is Mrs. Turpin's husband. Who seems to fit in the same vein as Mr. Freeman and Bailey, a man with a dry sense of humor with no interesting qualities what so ever. In many of her short stories there seems to be no men with any kind of redeeming agreeable quality, although it seems to be very much the same with the women in her stories. The reader has to ask why? She was never married did she have some inner resentment towards men? Her father died when she was 15 did that scar her that she felt no desire to find a companion, or maybe she had such a close relationship with God that she did not need a man in her life. One will never know, one can only speculate.
In the end looking back at many of O'Connor's short stories she paints a very bleak portrait of humanity through her characterization. O'Connor reveals her beliefs and ideas on faith, traditional southern mentalities, and attitudes toward men. There is so much more to be analyzed in O'Connor's short stories and the characters she creates but on a very broad scope we can see that she lived a very simple life and clung to the only extraordinary aspect of it, her spiritual life, illustrated though her brilliance in literature and manipulation and creation of her characters. She left a wonderful literary legacy and may she forever rest in peace.
Works Cited
Galloway, Patric. "Flannery O'Connor." Books and Blog by Patrick Galloway. Patweb, 1996. Web. 01 Feb. 2010..
Gooch, Brad. Flannery a life of Flannery O'Connor. New York: Little, Brown and, 2008. Print.
Mrs. Martinez
AP Literature and Composition
February 1, 2010
The writings of Flannery O'Connor have an odd effect on the reader. She has a decisive and an almost strict narrative. The writing seems almost cold as she introduces characters and settings, but as O'Connor let's the story unfold the reader finds her stories practically impossible to put down. A common theme of O'Connor seems to be putting seemingly average and occasionally very out of the ordinary characters in completely outlandish situations. At first O'Connor's writing seems straight forward but taking a deeper look one finds themselves entrenched in imagery, symbolism, and hidden meanings. The most fascinating aspect of O'Connor's short stories is her characterization and her development of characters, Main and minor ones. In taking a deeper look at O'Connor's characters O'Connor seems to subtly reveal her desires, inhibitions, fears, beliefs, and even her flaws.
To really analyze O'Connor's writing and how it reflected her one must first take a look at her own life. Mary Flannery O'Connor was born on March 25th in Savannah, Georgia. O'Connor was raised a devout Catholic practiced this faith until her death. She lived in the south most of her life. What is so fascinating about Flannery O'Connor is her average lifestyle, and yet she had the ability to create such imaginative stories with such a depth and genius to them. O'Connor did not attend any superior universities either. She attended Georgia State College for Women and State University of Iowa. In 1951 she was a diagnosed with the rare blood disease Lupus, the same disease her father died of in 1938. She then returned to her families farm in Andalusia, Georgia and raised all kinds of birds especially peacocks. Burdened by the knowledge of her eminent death she spent the rest of her life on the farm writing a total of 32 short stories and 2 novels before her death in 1964 when she was only forty years old. O'Connor seems to be such a complex character, she lived such an ordinary life and yet had the ability to illustrate such out of the ordinary tales of life and death.
In O'Connor's short stories one aspect that is constantly present is her strange yet familiar characters. Characterization is always an interesting aspect in short stories, mainly because it is practically impossible for full development of character. There is something absent in character development in short stories compared to full length novels. What isn't said about a particular character is left for the reader to infer, which almost entices the reader even more. For instance in Flannery O'Connor's short story “Good Country People” one of the main characters Hulga is left alone legless in the attic of a barn. Many times O'Connor leaves her characters lives and the paths there on open ended inviting the reader to think just a little bit deeper. Although in the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the main characters the grandmother, Bailey, the mother and children are all shot the villain in the story “The Misfit” he is called is left with his two wing-men to continue on down the road in the deep south. Why does O'Connor seem to do leave the end open with her characters time and time again in her short stories, did she feel her life was left open ended? She spent a good portion of her life with the knowledge of her own death, in O'Connor's short stories strange outlandish things happen quickly and unexpectedly to surface characters. Is this a reflection of O'Connor's own life? She was on a great literary path with a great literary legacy to be made, and yet it was cut short because of her disease. Although she did leave quite a literary legacy many aspects regarding O'Connor's beliefs and life are left open ended.
There seems to be a few main themes in Flannery O'Connor's short stories that are illustrated in her characters. There is obviously the huge theme of religion in her short stories, and the traditional southern values that comes from living in the south for a person's whole life. Then there seems to be the common device of O'Connor to create very average simple very southern and often Catholic characters.
In the end these characters seemed to be flawed, deceived by the people around them and their own disillusion and undergo an intense experience. O'Connor's characters seem to reflect many of her values and beliefs. She almost satirizes the Catholic faith in many of her stories. One would think she was criticizing the religion with her characters especially Mrs. Turpin from the short story “Revelation” but in fact she was a very devout Catholic. Unlike the characters in her stories it seems Flannery O'Connor had a very deep understanding of her faith, it was something very dear to her, and she was able to look at it from an outside perspective and criticize the flaws in it. Mrs. Turpin was a person very quick to judge. Judging the white trash people around her, the African American boy, and the demon like adolescent girl Mary Grace. In looking at Mrs. Turpin and O'Connor's characters from other stories such as Mrs. Hopewell, Mrs. Freeman from “Good Country People”, and even the grandmother from “A Good Man is Hard to Find. I believe that O'Connor really resented this aspect of her religion, the quickness to judge those who seem beneath others. She wasn't criticizing Catholicism itself but rather the misconstrued beliefs and disillusioned norms tied together with it.
Another major common theme found in O'Connor's stories is her attitudes toward men We know very little about O'Connor's attitude towards men. O'Connor never married and in analyzing her writing it seems she showed little desire to be married. Although it seems a minor aspect of her writing, her attitude towards men, it is apparent especially in her characterization of her male characters. First of all it seems the majority of her male characters are either very minor and boring or completely demented and deranged. We can see this in her characters such as the Misfit, the demented and deranged man, and Bailey, the average family man with no interesting qualities what so ever in the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. In the short story “Good Country People” there is the at first very agreeable bible selling nice young man, Sharp Shooter, in the end he turns out to be almost as demented and deranged as the Misfit. Seducing the main character Hulga and stealing her leg! The only other man mentioned in the story is Mrs. Freeman's husband, like Bailey very average and boring. In “Revelation” the only man we see is Mrs. Turpin's husband. Who seems to fit in the same vein as Mr. Freeman and Bailey, a man with a dry sense of humor with no interesting qualities what so ever. In many of her short stories there seems to be no men with any kind of redeeming agreeable quality, although it seems to be very much the same with the women in her stories. The reader has to ask why? She was never married did she have some inner resentment towards men? Her father died when she was 15 did that scar her that she felt no desire to find a companion, or maybe she had such a close relationship with God that she did not need a man in her life. One will never know, one can only speculate.
In the end looking back at many of O'Connor's short stories she paints a very bleak portrait of humanity through her characterization. O'Connor reveals her beliefs and ideas on faith, traditional southern mentalities, and attitudes toward men. There is so much more to be analyzed in O'Connor's short stories and the characters she creates but on a very broad scope we can see that she lived a very simple life and clung to the only extraordinary aspect of it, her spiritual life, illustrated though her brilliance in literature and manipulation and creation of her characters. She left a wonderful literary legacy and may she forever rest in peace.
Works Cited
Galloway, Patric. "Flannery O'Connor." Books and Blog by Patrick Galloway. Patweb, 1996. Web. 01 Feb. 2010.
Gooch, Brad. Flannery a life of Flannery O'Connor. New York: Little, Brown and, 2008. Print.
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