“A Good Man is Hard to Find”: Comparing Flannery O’Connor’s Literary Technique

“A Good Man is Hard to Find”: Comparing Flannery O’Connor’s Literary Technique to Grotesque Medieval Literature

Upon initially reading Flannery O’Connor’s work, one would have no problem recognizing her use of shocking, violent, or despairing themes. It may not be as easy, however, to completely accept or understand her style. According to Patrick Galloway, one must be “initiated to her trademarks when reading any of her two novels or thirty-two short stories (1).In many of her works, she paradoxically uses styles that are grotesque and brutal to illustrate themes of grace and self-actualization. As O’Connor herself says, “I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace” (qtd. in Hawkins 30).Although at times disturbing, O’Connor’s paradox is an effective literary technique, deepening the meaning of her stories.Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” can be used as a tool to become ‘initiated’ to this unique style.

Few critics would deny that “A Good Man” is a grotesque story: A grandmother and her son’s family on vacation are ruthlessly killed by an escaped convict.Some O’Connor critics are taken aback by this grotesque aspect because the family and elderly woman seem so innocent.People do not want to imagine their quiet and delicate, “gray-haired” grandmother standing in the face of a murderer, so they sympathize with O’Connor’s Grandmother as well (Bandy 2).This gruesome scene does not, however, serve as senseless violence.Beyond the disturbing imagery is a story that makes poignant religious and philosophical claims (Galloway 6).Pat Galloway analyzes this technique as the way O’Connor’s characters receive t...

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Works Consulted

Bloom, Harold, ed. Flannery O’Connor. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986.

Hagen, Susan. “Team Teaching Middle English Literature With Flannery O’Connor.” http://panther.bsc.edu/~shagen/oconnor.htm (10 Nov. 1999).

McMillen, Jenny. “Short Story Reviews.”http://www.geocities.com?Athens/Troy/2188/reviews.html (10 Nov. 1999)

Owens, Mitchell. “The Function of Signature in ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find.’” Studies in Short Fiction 33 (Wntr 1996): 101-106.

Schilling, Timothy. “Trying To See Straight: Flannery O’Connor & the Business of Writing.” Commonweal 122 (Nov 3, 1995): 14-15.

Sloan, Gary. “O’Connor’s ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find.’” The Explicator 57 (Wntr 1999): 118-120.