Flannery O Connor's Revelation

She describes the pharisaical congregants with the desire to do the right thing, however, their dignity comes from being seen at church. Dillard’s church is the “Families whose members have been acquainted with each other as long as anyone remembers grow not close, but respectful,” and the barefoot Jesus dangles inside the dome of the church building, alone (Dillard p.137). Why did they not see the real Jesus? Dillard, as a teenager, understood at a young age, the American church is trapped under the obligation of doing instead being with Jesus, inasmuch as she recognized these dear families with a pining desire to love one another and sincerely pray to their

After the incident, Mrs. Turpin is upset with Mary’s comment. She goes out to the pig pen to talk to God when, “A final surge of fury shook her and she roared, ‘Who do you think you are?’’ (O’Connor 32). She speaks as if she is even above God. While still talking to God, Mrs. Turpin sees a vision of people walking on a bridge from earth to heaven. She sees white-trash people clean for the first time, niggers wearing white robes, and crazy people happily making their way toward heaven in front of her and people like her. The quote, “Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces even their virtues were being burned away” shows that her class think they should be ahead of the others (O’Connor 35). After seeing the vision, Mrs. Turpin’s views do not change, and she still believes that her kind are superior and more

Again, giving God authority and power. Finally there is Dillard. Dillard went to church but did not truly know God. By the end of the excerpt she recognizes this fact. She believed in God and his power but she did not feel or know him on a personal level. Dillard says, “I left Pittsburg before I had a grain of sense. Who is my neighbor? I never learned what the strangers around me had known and felt in their lives- those little, sarcastic boys in the balcony, those expensive men and women in the pews below- but it was more than I knew after all”(128). She knew the power that God had to influence the people around her, she personally felt different about this fact compared to the people she went to church with.

Mrs. Turpin addresses the question, “What do you send me a message like that for” to God. Mrs. Turpin is so angered and bewildered because she thinks the message that she receives from Mary Grace was a message from God. She cannot understand why God would send her a disgusting message although she pious and hardworking

She mingles the personal with the public in order to share the experience with her readers and therefore truly express their feelings. “I think that my putting myself in my poetry is me saying to my readers and my listeners “I’m willing to stand here and be as vulnerable as perhaps I am making others and situations vulnerable in my work. I have to be willing to do that” (Finney, “Interview with: Nikky Finney.”).

Hurston and Janie both endured oppression during their lives based upon their race and gender however, their strong wills propelled them threw unforeseen obstacle. Zora Neale Hurston was a phenomenal African American woman whom despite her rough childhood would become one of the most profound authors of the century. Throughout her lifetime she was the, “Recipient of two Guggenheims and the author of four novels, a dozen short stories, two musicals, two books on black mythology, dozens of essays, and a prizewinning autobiography” (Gates 4). Hurston had to overcome numerous obstacles because of her gender, economic status, and racial identity. Hurston was born in 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama but grew up in Eatonville, Florida. Her mother died when she was thirteen-years-old, and as a result, her father sent her to boarding school shortly after. Overcoming many odds, Hurston graduated from Barnard college in 1927 with her

Flannery O’Connor is a renowned Southern author, noted for her gothic works and heavily Catholic themes. She focuses predominantly on racial tensions, morality, and divine grace. The religious and moral themes of her short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, converge on the character of the grandmother. Despite the self-proclamations of fulfilling what it means to be a Southern lady, Grandmother holds a superficial grasp of her religion. Throughout the story, the Grandmother never truly changed, only her ostensible actions did. Her final act towards the Misfit was not out of charity, but in attempt to save herself.

Turpin and the grandmother’s character, Flannery O’Connor made them very hypocritical and made sure her readers would notice it. The two women’s behavior came off in a way that suggested they had higher standards and were above everybody they encountered. Grandmother believes that where you stand in the social class depends on your blood and the family you were born into. Mrs. Turpin judged others and their place in the social class by whether they owned land or a home, and by their race, “Sometimes Mrs. Turpin occupied herself at night naming the classes of people.” (pg. 416) Both ladies can be considered racists in many parts of both stories. During “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the grandmother sees a young boy out the window and describes him as a “cute little pickaninny” (pg.405) and insists that if she could paint she would paint a picture of him. Mrs. Turpin in revelation uses similar language but more vial profound language when speaking to and about her colored workers and other colored and white trash people around

The reader is given the perspective of a young child named Harry, a child who doesn’t ignorant god. The mother and father are people who party,without a care they give their child to a baby sister Mrs.Connin. Mrs.Connin is a fundamentalist caretaker with much concern for Harry’s safety in the household that is absent of god. She is sickened by as Harry’s father mockingly remarks god’s name in vain “For Christ sake”. Mrs.Connin takes Harry and begins to interrogate him about his perspective of Jesus. Harry unenlightened of the prophet, he thought Jesus Christ was a curse word, stating in comparison of how his parents used his name, it was similar to the word “Damn”. This symbolizes how the word Jesus is used compared to Christians who are close to god, differentiating to how a real fundamental Christian would (being a religious analogy).

Characters serve as the metaphorical foundation upon which a story is written. In fact, the personalities of characters often reveal the outcome of a story’s plot before the author explicitly states it. In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the self-indulgent grandmother portrays the outcome of her attempted evangelism through her sanctimonious nature. Through her illegitimate Christian appearance based on deceit and self-elevation, her failed attempt to persuade the Misfit can be attributed to her hypocritical personality.

The United States Constitution states that the country values liberty, life, and happiness for all of its citizens. These three values shape the ideal American experience. Most view it as living freely, where all men, women, and races are created equal, and where oppression of genders and races does not exist. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, however, Zora Neale Hurston challenges the traditional view of this experience by illustrating how gender roles and racism change it, manifesting that it is not close to what the average citizen goes through, especially if he or she is black.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a powerful novel in which we follow the life events of the central character, Janie Crawford. While the novel revolves around the men that shape and distort her life, the principal element is the quest in which Janie undergoes in search of self fulfilment and her own identity. While many of her relationships do not flourish, they teach her many valuable lessons and allow her to progress in her search for spiritual enlightenment. Race and gender prove to be some of the most crucial themes in the novel as they exert prominent influence on the series of events that unfold throughout Their Eyes Were Watching God. In this essay, I will examine race and gender as well as examining the relationship between the two and how they play such a significant role in the life of Janie Crawford and her partners.

In this society, many judgements are made about people from different backgrounds. This causes many problems between people of other races. Racism can be shown in multiple ways such as by using overt and covert racism. In the two stories “The Stolen Party” by Liliana Hecker and “So What Are You, Anyway?” by Lawrence Hill, there are many examples of racist stereotypes. These stereotypes have many different effects on the people judged accordingly. Maintaining stereotypes is insensitive and divisive; it shows how oblivious society is to people of ‘other’ backgrounds and it is hurtful to those who are judge according to them.

In the short stories, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor and “A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner, a noticeable comparison is made between the two. Both short stories have alarming and horrifying plots that criticize southern corruption through the main character’s distorted view of the world. One is about a grandmother and her family being viciously murdered in cold blood, and the other is about a woman who murders her lover and then sleeps beside his decaying body. The two short stories both share uniquely similar characters and settings in the way that they view their own distorted reality of the South.

African- American writings have dealt with manifold themes throughout history. The American Civil War can be considered a break-through in the political as well as literary history. Many texts were born with subtle experiences of racist attitudes in America. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye can be pinned to the African- American writings after the American Civil War movement of the 1960’s, representing a “distinctively black literature” what Morrison calls “race-specific yet race-free prose”. Morrison is among the pioneer of those contemporary black writers who have redefined African- American writings in more ways than one. This assignment will focus on the aspects of gender bias and double consciousness in The Bluest Eye.