Internal and External Violence
Specific time periods, such as World War II, and the Post-Civil War era bring to mind images of hate, death, and violence. Not solely external violence or violence that is carried out, such as murders, war, or blatant displays of violence such as those in Ellison’s Battle Royal, but internal violence as well. Internal violence is more about the mind, a violence of emotion, though internal violence is closely linked to external violence. They are linked not only because external violence causes internal violence, but also because of the reverse. This is seen in the works of Ellison, Borowski, O’Connor, and DeLillo.
In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” O’Connor shows the effects of internal violence compared to external violence. On one hand you have the family members that are brought off to be killed. The only thing the author lets the reader know about their fate is a solitary scream when the mother, daughter, and baby are taken away. However, for the entire time that the family is being held hostage, the grandmother is talking to The
Misfit. She shows how people react to the internal violence of a stressful, and fatal ordeal. She pleads with The Misfit not to save her grandchildren’s lives, not her son and
daughter-in-law’s lives, but only her own. She has no fear for anyone but herself and is
consumed by the need to preserve her life. She tries everything she can to get The Misfit
to spare her. She tries to convince him that he is of good blood, and could never kill a
lady such as her self. She even tries to get him to turn to God for help. Of course none of this works but it makes a point. It makes the point that when faced with the fear of external violence, people will do any...
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...iolence is about. Its about fear, and helplessness because you realize that you too can die, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Every day you can watch the news and see examples of violence. Its all over, and
everyone has seen it. It seems that at least every few months there is another high school shooting where a teen rages against the society they live in the only way they know how, through violence, both internal and external. Internal because of the way they change the lives of those who live through the ordeal, and have the rest of their lives to think about how they saw their best friend get shot in school one day. External violence is directly related to internal violence because extreme violence, in person, scares people.
Works Cited
Charters, Ann, Comp. The Story And It’s Writer. Bedford/St. Martins: Boston and New
York, 1999.
The story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor is famous for its use of unexpected violence. An unnamed grandmother pleads with her family to take a vacation to Eastern Tennessee, the home of her youth instead of Florida. “Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people” (O’Connor). Here the grandmother does really believe that they will encounter these criminals, but instead tries to impose the fear of potential violence on her family to get her own way. When the grandmother meets Red Sam, she finds something of a kindred spirit, a person willing to judge and discuss disturbing events, even in front of young children. They judge the times based on the violence around them. “Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched” (O’Connor). The text gives no indication that either has experienced violence first-hand, so their concerns are all based on what they hear on the radio and read in the newspaper.
She knows that she is going to die. She reaches out to The Misfit and tells him “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!”. She doesn’t literally mean that he is her child but that they are both human, both children of God. The Misfit, being completely amoral and totally cut off from his own humanity, recoils from her touch.”The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest.” At this moment of her death, the Grandmother is more genuine than she’s ever been in her life. At the very end of her life she achieved a state of grace. The Misfit too, also undergoes a transformation. He realizes there’s “no real pleasure” in the way he’s been living his life. That’s not to say that The Misfit would stop killing. Only that, like the Grandmother, he realized a truth about
Flannery O’ Connor’s story: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is the tale of a vacation gone wrong. The tone of this story is set to be one irony. The story is filled with grotesque but meaningful irony. I this analysis I will guide you through the clues provided by the author, which in the end climax to the following lesson: “A Good Man” is not shown good by outward appearance, language, thinking, but by a life full of “good” actions.
Nordstrom looks to obscure and illuminate violence in the context of war. From the beginning of her book, she clearly states her goal as being “to explore the widely shared cultures of violence and the profound creativity t...
...n that saw her entire family murdered and still only thought about herself until the end. As for the Mis-Fit, he was only what he was, just like the grandmother. They were destined to cross paths and in the end grandma could not manipulate the one person she needed to so desperately. There is a saying “don’t speak it into existence,” the grandmother did just that.
O’Connor’s uses contrasting elements of literature to make the story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” mysterious yet predictable, and undeveloped yet totally defined. Her use of third person unknowing keeps the reader wondering but her use of foreshadowing gives the reader insight to what may occur next. The use of these two elements together keeps the reader predicting, therefore leading to an involvement with the reader and the story. The narrator lets the reader know that a criminal is on the loose, “Here this fellow calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people” (302). The next sentence reads, “ I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn’t answer to my conscience if I did” (303) which foreshadows what is to come later in the story. O’Connor also leaves many of the characters in the story very undefined except for the main two, The old woman, or the grandmother and the Misfit. O’Connor spent more time depicting the grandmothers outfit in the beginning of the story than she did with all of the undefined characters in the whole story combined, which gave insight to the way the grandmother was, the way she viewed herself and the way her family viewed her; an old, prude, egotistical woman. She did care for her family, but her intentions at heart were only for herself. The...
On a sunny spring day in April 1999, a suburban school named Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado found itself under attack by two of its own students. (http://www.knowgangs.com) In less than fifteen minutes of the first lunch period on that Tuesday, two armed students killed thirteen and wounded twenty-one fellow classmates before they turned the guns on themselves - the most devastating school shooting in U.S. history. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only school shooting; about thirty-five students die every year from school shootings. This generation comes from violence, hatred, and ignorance- the three principal factors that cause school shootings.
Violence in all of its manifestations is based on an exercise of power. It represents a means to gain power, to maintain power, or as a response to a threat to one's power. As long as a society maintains the legitimacy of social hierarchies, of the right of some people to have power over others, there will be violence. One can either seek to diffuse the concentration of power or to control violence. By its very character, the attempt to control violence is self-defeating. The control will itself become violent.
Kevin Powers and Geoffrey Canada both describe violence and its effects on people in their novels. They assert that violence profoundly changes a person; however, they differ on the merits of these changes. Canada concludes that violence teaches people and helps them grow, while Powers concludes that it dehumanizes and scars them. The two authors also disagree on the necessity of violence. Specifically, Canada argues that violence is necessary and is used to gain distinction and status, while Powers argues that violence is unnecessary and causes people to lose their singularity and identity. Even further, Canada believes violence protects the boys and their lives, while Powers believes violence kills the young soldiers. From their personal experiences, Canada claims boys in the South Bronx need to be violent to gain respect and to survive, while Powers claims the violence of war is a waste of young men’s lives as they lose respect and even their lives.
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” is an example of Southern Gothic literature because it has many disturbing and violent events taken place in the south. O 'Connor wrote this story in 1953 and uses this type of literature to convey the personalities of the unusual characters. O’Connor places two important characters in the story: the protagonist and antagonist. The Misfit, the antagonist, is represented as a philosopher with wise words to advise people about faith, and the grandmother, the protagonist, believes herself to be an idealized woman with her self obsession of her status of a “lady.” In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” O’Connor conveys how characterization can be the underlying concept of the story, and she makes the readers question the
What has our society come to these days? Everywhere we look, violence is present, at the streets, at work, at school, and even at home. Every day in the news we see reports about shootings, wars, thefts, drugs, rapes, and deaths. The worse part of seen this in the news is that all way do it’s complain about it and sit back. We do not even attempt an explanation or a resolution. Violence is among one of the most malignant act that has been increasing day by day. And why is it that we complain about other people being violent, but when we are asked if we are violent or if we have ever responded with violence, everyone says they are not violent. But if among ourselves we are not violent then who is it that makes our society a violent society?
The concept of being a “good” person has painted the picture of how people have handled their lives throughout history. On the same note, this concept has also been the subject of much debate; such is the case in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. The protagonist, the unnamed grandmother struggles to find the “good” in others and herself. O’Conner uses foreshadowing, characterization, and a distinct point of view to make her point. In my interpretation, her point is that only through conflict and turmoil can good truly be found.
The scientific study of violence in human says that everyone has, what scientists call, a “Seat of aggression” known as the limbic system. This area is located low in the central brain which is regulated by the brain’s frontal lobes. The two different areas communicate by sending chemical transmitters and hormones. One of them is called serotonin which heightens aggression in humans. Scientifically, humans have found that aggression in humans is natural but just because violence is scientifically natural does not mean it has to be socially innate. Violent behavior is “A response to particular sorts of provocation or stimulation,” therefore, focusing on interpersonal violence, aggression is caused by an unfavorable interaction with another human being or group. To then find the origin of violence, on a social level, the question of what the root is of unfavorable interactions between individuals and groups needs to be answered. The answer: the source of violence comes from tribalism and pressure.
Despite the Grandmother’s earlier preaching about the horrid character of the Misfit, when put in a back-to-the-wall situation she says, “I know you’re a good man”. The Grandmother’s strong concept of morality goes out the window when she is in a precarious situation. This is not unjustified, as she simply wants to make it out of the situation alive, yet it calls into question her character and the strength of her convictions. It also makes the readers themselves question their own morality; what would they do in a similar situation? The reader can feel sympathy for the Grandmother in this dangerous situation, yet it is her actions as the conversation progresses that cause the reader to pause and truly question the character of the Grandmother. The Misfit’s assistants systematically kill her family, as they are taken into the woods and shot. Throughout this time, the Grandmother seems to only be focused on self-preservation, with her only recognition of something awry being two isolated yells of “Bailey Boy!” O’Connor is showing the character of not just the Grandmother, but what she perceives to be the common trend in 1950’s culture. The idea of family unity and selflessness, even by those who propagate the idea, is forgotten when the individual is
...eceives people on earth, but it’s all out of a place of sorrow. She does it merely to look for her daughter in hopes of finding her.