A decent man truly is elusive. In any case, what is the genuine meaning of a genuine man? Perhaps it is not only the ideal man you find in fantasies or the ideal individual strolling down Sixth Ave. that you spend by consistently to work. Perhaps a decent individual is somebody that is great what they do. For this situation, the connection between the grandma and the nonconformist is only that. The main thing is if the peruser sees it as obviously as the creator might want them as well or essentially, as she does. The setting of the story is never obvious to the peruser. Nevertheless, after looking into it further, it is anything but difficult to acknowledge how these two apparently total inverses are really organized to summon similar sentiments in perusers and to investigate similar ideas. A nearby assessment of ‘Where are you going, where have you been?’ and ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ uncover similitudes in the depiction of viciousness, the damaging impacts of guiltlessness and innocence, and the truth of malice on the planet.
This could have been the situation between the rebel and the grandma both. Nevertheless, it is rarely actually unmistakably said. The loner could have been known as the underhanded antagonist of the story. The grandma was gradually starting to transform into one yet never made it the whole distance. ‘So take a risk, and investigate Flannery O’Connor. Get ready to snicker, to be stunned, and to think. Be that as it may, above all else be set up to see.’ (Wellborn 201). There are numerous images in A Good Man is Hard to Find. ‘A Symbol is something that speaks to something different by affiliation, similarity, or show, particularly a material article used to speak
to something undetectable.’ – Symbol. The primary clearest image is the Grandmother’s cap. She wears the cap for one sole reason; if she somehow managed to kick the bucket, she would need the ones who saw her body as ready to recognize her as a lady. At the point when she gets ready for the vehicle trip, she gets ready for any mishap that may happen. For the grandma the main thing that appears to issue to her is that she is perceived as a lady, this uncovers her childishness and unstable good show. At the point when the grandma initially prepares for the outing, the cap is in flawless condition. No tears, no nothing. At the point when the grandma engages in the fender bender, much the same as her ethical feelings, her cap starts to self-destruct. The edge of the cap starts to tear as she faces the nonconformist and is tossed from the vehicle.(Hurley 371)
Connie needs to escape from her mom’s annoying so June, her sister, choose to go out to a mall together, however then choose to go a drive-in café. At the drive-in eatery, she experiences a kid named Eddie who quickly gets included into having a discussion with her. He asks her what she needs to eat, and he gets Connie to accompany him and keeping in mind that she was doing that, a strange man in a gold convertible vehicle keeps pursues her alongside his buddy Ellie. Later he was uncovered Arnold Friend. He inquires as to whether she might want to go out for a ride. Connie gets confounded, and hesitatingly opposes Arnold Friend’s allurement by calling the police to get him to leave. Sadly, the telephone doesn’t work, and Connie gets terrified while shouting out for her family in dread.
Eventually, Connie submits to Arnold Friends wish, and she tails him to his vehicle while the destiny of her is obscure. In Joyce Carol Oates, ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’, Arnold Friend is emblematically illustrative of the ‘fallen angel’ due to his temperament as a sexual stalker, tricking Connie through the fiend’s forces of enticement with his vehicle, music, and looks. Arnold Friend’s appearance. He seems to have wild hair that resembles a wig. His nose is long in likeness of the fiend. His shoes don’t fit him so he winds up wobbling when he strolls. He likewise seems to appear to be like Bob Dylan to get Connie’s advantage. His shoes are loaded down with clothes that make him look taller. He looks along these lines as a phony nearness when he is in reality short. ‘Companion’s superhuman capacity to tell decisively what Connie’s missing guardians are doing and doing and the vile limit with regards to malice exhibited by his dangers to hurt her family recommend a Satanic personality.’ Being that the grandma’s character is a to some degree cliché lady from the 1950s time south, it tends to be accepted that there is a type of genuine impact to her character’s inclination. The grandma’s dependability toward politeness, her requesting character, and her supremacist remarks are not out of the ordinary for a lady of her time and spot. The grandma’s mentality toward African Americans was the normal conclusion among white individuals of that time in the country South.
A significant debate during the 1950s was that of racial isolation and social liberties for African Americans. The grandma in ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ delineates an attitude toward African Americans that offers a fair take a gander at how the general public around O’Connor saw issues of race or class. The grandma alludes to the African American kid in debasing terms that quickly undermine his validity as a human by all accounts ‘Goodness take a gander at the charming little pick ninny!’ she said and indicated a Negro kid remaining in the entryway of a shack. ‘She puts herself so high over the kid that it makes taking a gander at the kid on his means like taking a gander at an image. This is a critical minute in that it uncovers a portion of the ethical grandma’s practically weak profound quality. The storyteller’s reference to the kid as a ‘negro’ is likewise intelligent of the time and condition of isolation in which O’Connor composed this story. The expression ‘negro’ would have been socially adequate and politically right. (Thomas 199-128)The racial language and portrayals utilized by the storyteller and the grandma are valuable in understanding the snapshot of the work.
Being seen also mannered is essential to the grandma. When planning to go to Florida with her child and his family, she made a point to dress in decent garments and was critical of Bailey’s better half’s progressively easygoing apparel decisions. The storyteller says, the youngsters’ mom still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green hanky, yet the grandma had on a naval force blue straw mariner cap with a lot of white violets on the overflow and a naval force blue dress with a little white spot in the print. Her collars and sleeves were white organdy cut with trim and at her neck area, she had stuck a purple shower of fabric violets containing a sachet. If there should arise an occurrence of a mishap, anybody seeing her dead on the thruway would know without a moment’s delay that she was a lady. The manner in which others see her is of top need to the grandma. Her need to conform to her own well-mannered standards concurs with thoughts of the time. Being that the grandmother is described as being an old woman in the 1950s, it can be assumed that she was raised in a time that placed particular emphasis on women’s appearance and dress. Her attentiveness to being well-mannered is also of importance because it shows readers how the grandmother wishes to present herself. The readers see that grandmother wants to be viewed as a good woman. (Mitchell 211-216)
The Ladies in these stories are displayed as the more fragile sex while men are given more significance and amazing jobs. In such manner these story can be seen as feministic perspective. Women’s liberation is mindfulness among ladies about ladies’ privileges on the base of political, social, and monetary fairness to men (Thompson 118). Women’s activist Criticism offers a Unique comprehension of Flannery O’Connor’s short story A Good Man is Hard to Find since it reflects with where are you going, where have you been Joyce Carol Oates’s. In today’s world women still share these same traits in so many ways.
As most man will look upon them with these examples of what a women is posed to do such as ladies are regularly expected to oblige and enthusiastic, while men are typically expected to act naturally sure and aggressive. Some individuals expect that ladies will deal with the kids, cook, and clean the home, while men deal with funds, deal with the vehicle, and do the home repairs. Some individuals rush to accept that instructors and medical attendants are ladies, and that pilots, specialists, and architects are men. Women are relied upon to be slender and smooth, while men are required to be tall and solid. People are likewise expected to dress and prepare in manners that are cliché to their sexual orientation (men wearing jeans and short haircuts, ladies wearing dresses and make-up.
Sexual orientation jobs are impacted by social convictions and speculations that have been being used for a considerable length of time. Like the title of spitfire, there are other sexual orientation characterizations that numerous individuals pass by, for example, gender, sex liquid, (Killermann). Sexual orientations and sex jobs are not obvious classifications that can be applied to everybody in the public eye. This can persuade that the individuals who don’t fit flawlessly into the set sexual orientation jobs may be defective in some way or another, which can bring about issues like discrimination or mistreatment. Rather, sex ought to be thought of as practices and individual distinguishing pieces of proof that exist along a range. One approach to tackle this issue in the public eye is for the media to show increasingly relatable, constructive depictions of individuals who don’t pursue customary sexual orientation jobs, for example, a transgender or transsexual young person who is going to class like some other youngster, or a football player who dresses or carries on in a ladylike manner. Another arrangement would be progressively thorough exercises in schools that show the contrasts among sex and sexual orientation, just as the various emotions children and young people may understanding as they experience adolescence. This would assist young people with bettering get themselves and their bodies as they create and change.
Reflecting back on it Joyce Carol Oates plays upon the female sex generalizations through her misled immature character, Connie, in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been. Naivety and freshness are two qualities that depict Connie as a frail adolescent, urgently looking to discover her personality in this present reality where ladies are required to act a specific way. Connie succumbs to the advances of a man since she needs manly direction in her life, and falls prey to the cliché female job of sub statute. Her job of subjection is because of the man centric culture that keeps ladies underneath men through mastery and abuse. Any endeavor to break free from the chains of male controlled society will at last end in end or assault. Through the relinquishment of her dad, and the confinements of a man centric culture, Connie’s passing is inescapable, paying little respect to any endeavors to battle man controlled society.
Work Cited
- DAVIS, DAVID A. “A Good Mayonnaise Is Hard to Find: Flannery O’Connor and Culinary Codependency.” Southern Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 1, Fall 2018, pp. 29–41. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=137428039&site=ehost-live.
- Easterly, Joan. “The Shadow of a Satyr in Oate’s `Where Are You Going, Where..” Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 27, no. 4, Fall 1990, p. 537. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9705100587&site=ehost-live.
- Flannery O’Connor’s. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” Literature and the Writing Process, Elizabeth Mcmahan, et al., 11th ed., Pearson,2016, pp 297-300
- Flint, Thomas P. “On the Significance of Civil War References in Flannery O’Connor’s ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’” Renascence, vol. 70, no. 2, Spring 2018, pp. 119–128. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=130345829&site=ehost-live.
- Harnois, Catherine E., et al. “Measuring Perceived Mistreatment across Diverse Social Groups: An Evaluation of the Everyday Discrimination Scale.” Social Science & Medicine, vol. 232, July 2019, pp. 298–306. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.05.011.
- Hurley, D. F. “Impure Realism: Joyce Carol Oates’s `Where Are You Going..” Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 28, no. 3, Summer 1991, p. 371. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9705052059&site=ehost-live.
- Joyce Carol Oates. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” Literature and the Writing Process, Elizabeth Mcmahan, et al., 11th ed., Pearson,2016, pp 296-300
- Mitchell, Mark T. “The Melancholy Tyrant: Democracy and Tyranny in Flannery O’Connor’s ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’” Perspectives on Political Science, vol. 34, no. 4, Fall 2005, 216. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3200/PPSC.34.4.211-216.
