The short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor is a story about death. A family is killed by a fugitive they call the “misfit”. In another short story by Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour,” death is also apparent. A woman is overwhelmed with the grief of her dead husband. She then thinks of her new-found freedom and is overwhelmed with joy. In the two short stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “The Story of An Hour,” they have a common theme of death.
In Flannery O 'Connor 's short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find", a southern family is taking a vacation to Florida, but the real journey takes place inside the family 's lives. Flannery O’Connor was known for her strong religious background, Catholicism, and used her faith as the underlying message in her works. In the story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. The grand mother is a prime example of this scenario. Her pathetic ploys and acts of deviance cause harm to the family throughout the story and it ends up coming back to her in the end. Many of the characters in the story think of themselves as good people based on moral codes that they stand by. The Grandmother identifies herself as having the best values. The story is noted for its religious aspects, in particular O 'Connor 's penchant for depicting salvation through a shocking, often violent experience undergone by characters who are spiritually or physically grotesque.
In “The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence and in “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant Hester and Mathilde have many similarities and differences. The first similarity they share is their greed. When Paul began to win money off of beating for horses he wanted to give some to his mother to stop the house from whispering, so he decided he would give her one thousand pounds each year on her birthday for five years. When Hester received the news she was very upset. She did not want to wait instead she wanted all the money at once. Paul agreed, hoping the money would at last quiet the house, however, the house just got louder. With the money Paul’s mother bought new furniture, toys, and other expensive pleasures. Instead of using the money on things the middle-class family needed Paul’s mother decided she should use the money to appear to be an upper-class rich family. Mathilde also comes from middle-class, but would rather live that upper-class lifestyle. An
We are greedy. We as humans cling to the materialistic things in our lives. Some of us have everything we need to live a perfectly comfortable life, but keep wanting. Greed controls almost everyone, no matter how many possessions we have in our name. In this, when our greed exceed our needs, we lose sight of what is important, leading to our detriment. Three examples of greed and its effects are shown in the stories of “The Necklace”, “Civil Peace”, and “The Golden Touch”.
The short story The Necklace, by Guy de Maupassaut, demonstrates people’s greediness. The main character, Mathilde, only ever wanted more than what was giving to her. “She suffered constantly, feeling that all the attributes of a gracious life, every luxury, should rightly have been hers.” Mathilde believed she deserved everything she wanted. She was very rude to her husband. Her desire for materials was stronger than the love she should have shown to people. “Give the invitation to one of your colleagues whose wife will be better dressed than I would be.” She was too worried about looking her best to even thank her husband for the effort he put in to retrieve the invitation. At the end of the story, irony makes its appearance. Mathilde borrowed and lost a necklace from a friend. Her and her husband bought a new one as a replacement, furthermore, dedicated the next ten years to pay for
Greed is a prevalent theme in literary works, “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Necklace” both show this problem. “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Necklace are two completely different stories. The stories are different in setting, the character's background, and what happened because of their greed. However overall the stories are very similar in meaning. Both are about not to be so greedy and be happy with what you have. Both “The Necklace” and “The Monkey’s Paw” have similarities and differences in themes and characters which show how the consequences of greed led to the character's demise, however the plot lines were very different.
In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, the author portrays the grandmother as self-centered, dishonest and prideful woman. The grandmother is an old, southern, Caucasian woman who describes herself as a good woman. Throughout the story, O’Connor shows how the grandmother’s pride, and selfishness leads her to unappreciated her family. She does not care about them, she only cares about herself and what will benefit her. The grandmother’s selfishness, judgmental actions, dishonesty put the family in danger. It is the grandmother’s selfishness that leads to the death of her family. The short story “A good Man is Hard to Find” teaches us that nothing good come from being selfish.
In the short story of “A good man is hard to find” is about a family wanting to take a vacation but the grandmother had different plans for the family. The family wanted to take a trip to Florida, but the grandmother wanted to go to Tennessee instead. The grandmother tried everything she could to change her son Baily’s mind. Nothing seemed to work, because Baily was just stubborn like his mother. The grandmother finally does convince the family to go to Tennessee; and that is when things turn out for the worse for the grandmother and the family. Baily and his family find out the hard way how like can be very ironic.
A major theme Mathilde learns in this story is lusting after expensive and luxurious items does not bring long-term happiness.
In the second paragraph of the story the author states that she is suffering because she doesn't have the things she wants by saying, “She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains.” (Guy de Maupassant 2) “She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved;” (Guy de Maupassant 2) The author included this to let the readers know what kind of “Poverty” Matilde was living in. Mathilde doesn't seem to love her husband as much. He thinks different about her. He treats her like a queen and buys her everything she wants. When she got the invitation to the party, she responded so heavily and he was the complete opposite. The author shows this relationship by saying, “Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she flung the invitation petulantly across the table, murmuring: "What do you want me to do with this?" "Why, darling, I thought you'd be pleased. You never go out, and this is a great occasion. I had tremendous trouble to get it. Everyone wants one; it's very select, and very few go to the clerks. You'll see all the really big people there."” (Guy de Maupassant 2) it seems she obviously just wants money and her gifts. She thinks about herself and only herself. Unlike Della from “Gift of the Magi” She is
In the short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the author, Flannery O 'Connor, demonstrates how a short story can contain many aspects of feminism without one even noticing. Looking at the short story through a feminist point of view, one can quickly gather that O’Connor uses the old school gender roles from the very beginning of the short story.
In the short story “The Necklace”, Mathilde Loisel’s excessive pride destories her merriment. Guy de Maupassant emphasizes Mathilde’s pridefulness when she does not
In “The Great Gatsby”, the characters Myrtle Wilson and Jay Gatsby and in “The Necklace”, Mathilde Loisel, allow themselves to be selfish and greedy by believing that having a high social status is more important than the people around them. This can be seen through the affair of Myrtle Wilson and Tom Buchanan where her husband, George Wilson means nothing to her, instead having a rich and glamorous life is more concerning. This shows that Myrtle’s relationship with George is weak. To Myrtle, Tom’s wealth and reputation outshines Wilson’s low-class job. Myrtle admires Tom because she sees Tom as a way of achieving a high status and good reputation and dislikes her husband, who is completely devoted to her and would do anything to insure her
Everyone in life wants to fit in because why would anyone want to be left out? However, the fact that we want to fit in ruins some people's lives because of the limits they go to to accomplish our common goal. On the contrary, some lives are ruined by trying to stand out and not staying with the crowd. This is very clearly stated in two very different ways by Guy de Maupassant in the story “The Necklace” and by Ray Bradbury in “The Pedestrian”. In both of these stories we are shown that you should not get caught up in what others are doing.
Guy de Maupassant is considered one of the most major nineteenth-century French naturalist writers. Maupassant was a meticulous writer devoting much attention to the reality of everyday existence. His major stories are characterized by their focus on irony. Human beings are weak thus forces, which they cannot control, influence them. Usually, Maupassant characters exhibit or portray various degrees of weakness, such as hypocrisy, callousness or even cruelty. He also demonstrates through his characters a human touch. The characters that are victimized are viewed with understanding and sympathy.