Southern Families in O'Connor and Faulkner's Works

The families that are in Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" and William Faulkner's "Barn Burning" share many of the same characteristics. Both families are Southern, in that they reflect a poor, uneducated type of twentieth century Southerner. They both have a strange nature, their relations with each other are rooted through rough expectations, blunt actions, and little expressions. A very obvious connection between the two is desperation, it is most evident in Faulkner's Snopes family but can be detected in O'Conner's family as well.
In "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" Flannery O'Conner writes about a family that most people can easily identify with. A trip to Florida is about to be undertaken by the family and the grandmother

is very vocal and demanding, tries to resist it. This is not really any help as it is understood early in the story that this family of her only son is accustom to her complaints and lofty opinions and usually ignore her. Central to the story, the grandmother is not a powerful figure especially not within the family, she is put up with only because there is no other way and even her grandchildren are comfortable talking back to her. The grandmother tells that "In my time, children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then..."( O'Conner 363). The grandmothers great concern is that an escaped convict will be encountered and this does eventually happen to them. This is almost considered karma, because she was hoping something would not happen to her and the family but eventually it does. Compared to Faulkner's family in "Barn Burning", the O'Conner family may appear as a full family. This is caused by a contrast within the stories, for the young son, deeply conflicted by his ties to his harsh father and his inability to accept what the man does in response. This is essentially what marks the families much different from one another. The grandmother in O'Conner's story, as loud as she is, is powerless to the family around her as they manifest with individual personalities even as they are very average just like everyone else. Snopes on the other hand rules his family so that they have no identities. Throughout "Barn Burning" the Snopes women are always present but are working shadows in the family. The wife, aunt, and daughters are reduced to animal- like state by following him and obeying his orders. It is likely that they could generate sympathy or interest if they were slightly more humanely, but only the boy becomes sympathetic as he is a pivotal element in the story.
The characteristics applied to this Southern literature is much more than the use of southern dialects and country folk lifestyle.

Both of these stories are great examples in that they offer pivotal characters outside of the "norm", literal or figurative imprisonment, violent and a sense of place. In Faulkner's "Barn Burning", Abner is seemingly a maniac with little control over his anger, although there are many people in the world that sometime let their anger get the best of them, Abner appears to have a very hard time. His unlawful actions and general negative attitude seem to stem from a need to control his environment, meaning he likes to be in control of the events that occur. This sort of acting out are attempts to show that he has the power in these disagreements that normal people would surely push aside. In "A Good Man Is Hard To Find", the Misfit is clearly deranged or he would not have killed an entire family. Although it is never clearly told in the text what the Misfit suffers from, there is a mental feeling struck when the grandmother starts making references to her faith. He institutes that if God's actions were proven then he would willingly follow his word but if he did not do what was prophesized, " Then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can- by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him" (O'Conner

370).
This figurative sense of imprisonment is quite prevalent in Faulkner's "Barn Burning." Because of Abner's different view of the world, he feels trapped in his own life. The decent man's work that he does is grounds for any man to be on edge but the fact that Abner repeatedly objects to his laborious and under- paid line of work shows the imprisonment that he is feeling. His son Sarty in a way is more trapped than his father is. Not only does Sarty seem trapped by living with his recluse of a father, but as a confused child, he is also torn in protecting his father versus doing what is actually right. This is especially apparent in "Barn Burning" when Sarty has to choose between letting his father attack Major de Spain's property or alerting the Major before his father could arrive. After being told to go fetch the oil, Sarty thinks " I could run on and on and never look back, never need to see his face again. Only I can't. I can't" (Faulkner 415).
In O'Conner's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" there are two instances of literal and figurative imprisonment. The literal imprisonment is experienced towards the end of the story when the Misfit captures the family after their car runs into a ditch. An entire family at gun- point is quite the mess to be stuck in. Along with the figurative lines of imprisonment, it seems that the family was imprisoned in their own vehicle as they have to deal with the selfish, manipulative grandmother. Her distaste for the trip was even illustrated in the opening sentence of the story, " The grandmother did not want to go to Florida" (O'Conner 361).
In "Barn Burning" Abner is the stereotypical violent father and his violence is telling of Southern literature. Not only does he let his temper drive him to burn down peoples' properties but he is also verbally and physically abusive towards his children. After facing a judge early in the story, Abner's paranoia sets in and he strikes Sarty in suspicion that he wanted to expose his father's doings, "His father struck him with the flat of his hand on the side of the head, hard but without heat..."(Faulkner 408). The hit was not meant to hurt him, but teach him a lesson, the desire to have power over something was still there. The violence in "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" is very easily spotted towards the end of the passage when the family is in the hands of the Misfit and his cohorts. The threatening of the family and their eventual slayings are obvious testaments to this grotesque brutality. "The misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. (O'Conner 370). Immediately after shooting the grandmother, the Misfit's general disregard for humanity is seen as he calmly retires his pistol and cleans his glasses.
The most understandable attribute of the Southern is its identity. In "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" the text clearly states the family's traveling in states like Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. In "Barn Burning" there are context clues like Sarty being named after the Confederate Colonel Sartoris Snopes ( Faulkner 406).
When comparing these two stories there are two factors that make the reader feel sympathy in a way that reflects on the whole families within them. In Faulkner's story, that hardness of the father is so strong that the reader can almost sympathize with the entire family under his control. In O'Conner's story, the violent deaths of the family make it very easy to sympathize with them, this family almost seems to deserve sympathy, even though they are ordinary and unpleasant, they are still human. Even though both of these stories tell about very different families, both of the families share many of the same characteristics, not only with each other but with real life families and therefore this all brings them together in the end by being so relatable.