Upon in-depth analysis. it becomes apparent that in Flannery O’Connor’s works. chesty. conceited. narcissistic and excessively disdainful characters receive the intolerable manifestation of their ain shoal. petit larceny and superficial egos. O’Connor’s characters are tragically incognizant of their ain egoism. The characters’ inordinate pride blinds them to their ain defects. When characters eventually get some degree of reason. it is ever at the cost of the life of person else ; hence decease becomes a manifestation of their ruthless self-importance. It seems that O’Connor goes beyond good and evil and leaves definition of these footings as an unfastened inquiry.
Manicheans/Dualists believe that good and immoralities are the two primary forces bing in the existence ; Christians believe there is merely good and all evil is a perversion of good ; O’Connor’s narratives exemplify that single immorality arises due to egoism and deficiency of soul-searching. For illustration. the grandma in A Good Man is Difficult to Find is really delusory and untruthful to her ain household due to her selfish desire to see a house that she had seen in her young person.
“There was a secret panel in this house. ” she said cunningly. non stating the truth but wishing that she were. “and the narrative went that all the household Ag was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was ne’er found. . . ”
She diverted the family’s attending from their aims and took advantage of her ain grandchildren in order to acquire some junior-grade satisfaction. Even worse. it ended up acquiring the full household killed. Merely because she was ‘wishing’ that she told the truth doesn’t make the fact that she lied any less fallacious. A careful expression at Everything That Rises Must Converge. reveals rather a few illustrations of egocentric traits. something that both Julian ( the boy ) and his female parent posses. Julian’s female parent is so proud of her household line that she approaches everyone else as inferior. Superiority complex as such leads her to pass plentifulness of clip seeking to make a baronial image of herself. Julian. on the other manus. is much more arch. although he loves and cares a great trade about his female parent. he is critical of her with the subconscious motivation of doing her a better individual. Over clip. nevertheless. he convinces himself that the unfavorable judgment he feels is non love. but instead hatred ; he feels that he is uncomparably smarter than others and fails to admit that the basic emotions of all human individuals are the same.
Excessive focal point on emotion makes one irrational ; and pride is no exclusion. In both narratives. an surfeit of pride of a character leads to the flood tide that normally leads to the character holding an utmost deficiency of pride. In A Good Man is Difficult to Find the grandmother’s pride is among the direct causes of her and her family’s decease.
The grandma shrieked. She scrambled to her pess and stood gazing. “You’re The Misfit! ” she said. “I recognized you at one time! ”
It is rather apparent that the grandma was so proud of cognizing that she had recognized the misfit that she didn’t even think of the effects before she blurted it out ; her pride blinded her from principle. Similarly. in Everything That Rises Must Converge Julian’s female parent offered a penny to a small male child who was with his female parent.
“Oh small male child! ” Julian’s female parent called and took a few speedy stairss and caught up with them merely beyond the lamppost. “Here’s a bright new penny for you. ” and she held out the coin. which shone bronze in the dim visible radiation.
There was no indicant that the male child needed a penny or any money at all for that affair. but Julian’s female parent assumed that the male child needed it and the boy’s female parent was offended and proceeded to strike Julian’s female parent. Despite the well known fact that no 1 gives a dim to those who do non implore. Julian’s mom’s selfish pride makes her believe that people feel honored to have alteration from her. In both narratives. unreason of characters due to their excess of pride leads to a grotesque flood tide.
The flood tide in both narratives are strongly linked to decease. normally in a quite grotesque and capricious mode. The decease or menace of decease brings about a disclosure of self-fulfillment. In A Good Man is Difficult to Find. the disclosure occurs when the grandma accepts the Misfit as her ain boy.
“Why you’re one of my babes. You’re one of my ain kids! ” She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a serpent had bitten him and shot her three times through the thorax.
The grandma perceptibly accepts person as her boy while having a menace of decease from them. She eventually shows compassion after all her errors. but was shot shortly after. The Misfit even stated “She would hold been a good adult female if it had been person at that place to hit her every minute of her life. ” It is clear that O’Connor wanted us to go cognizant of that fact. In Everything That Rises Must Converge. the female parent gets a bosom onslaught due the daze of the slap she had antecedently received.
Stunned. he let her travel and she lurched frontward once more. walking as if one leg were shorter than the other. A tide of darkness seemed to be brushing her from him. “Mother! ” he cried. “Darling. sweetie. delay! ” Crumpling. she fell to the paving.
It is non wholly clear if she experienced a disclosure of ego. but it is rather clear that her boy. Julian did.
The tide of darkness seemed to brush him back to her. postponing from minute to minute his entry into the universe of guilt and sorrow.
Julian is ever cruel to his female parent since he convinced himself that he hated her. He eventually realizes that he truly loves and attentions for her. but unhappily it takes his mother’s decease for him to recognize this. Julian experiences a disclosure. as does his female parent. and the grandma in the other narrative.
Good and immoralities are ever put into inquiry in O’Connor’s narratives and it becomes clear that merely because you think you’re good. doesn’t needfully intend that you are. This is a job O’Connor’s characters face. they consider themselves as good. but shortly after they realize otherwise. The characters’ ain pride blinds them to their ain world and makes them narcissistic. Finally when they do recognize their defect. it is through the quandary of decease. Any reader who genuinely understands O’Connor’s plants will analyse themselves on the footing of their degree of selflessness and egoism. O’Connor’s end seems to be to salvage her readers from a calamity and assist them to recognize themselves without it. To make this. she starts with extremely egocentric characters and so transforms them into selfless personalities. This ultimate transmutation. nevertheless. takes topographic point in a extremely tragic manner: through either the decease of the characters and/or their beloveds and nears.
