“Why Nice Guys Finish Last” by Julia Serano attempts to provide an explanation behind the cultural causes of rape culture, and how it can be destroyed. Serano supports her assertions with the rhetorical appeals of Pathos, Ethos, and Logos. In her essay, Serano attempts to make the argument that rape culture can only be destroyed when the predator/prey stereotype perpetuating it is destroyed. Serano’s argument is ultimately unpersuasive as she fails to establish her credibility on the topic, the logic behind her conclusions, or associate the audience’s emotional response with herself. Serano heavily relies on her own authority to make herself credible, leaving her argument ineffective from a lack of appeal to Ethos when her authority does …show more content…
Serano effectively emphasizes herself being transsexual to make herself appear to have a broader, and unbiased, perspective on the way both men and women are treated, providing credibility to her large use of anecdotal evidence later in her essay. However, some may be unsatisfied in Serano’s omission of the limits of her knowledge, leading her audience to question the authority of her claims when blind spots in her knowledge exits. For example, to explain her ability to analyze the predator/prey mindset Serano explains, “In thinking about these issues, I …show more content…
Serano observes the virgin/whore double bind placed on them by societal influences, and then raises that a similar double bind is placed on men: “having experienced this dilemma myself firsthand, I have come to refer to it (for reasons that will be clear in a moment) as the assholes/nice guys double bind. ‘Assholes’ are men who fulfill the men-as-sexual-aggressors stereotype; ‘nice guys’ are the ones who refuse or eschew it,” (Serano 312). In establishing a male double bind to mirror the phenomena effecting women, Serano grants the audience greater insight to her reasoning behind how stereotypes enforce rape culture. However, the false dichotomy Serano creates with the asshole/nice guys double bind fails to support her greater thesis of men being stereotyped as predators, as while the virgin and whore stereotype both cleanly fits into her claims that women in rape culture are thought to only be either sexual objects or prey, only the asshole portion of her double bind for male fits into the sexual aggressor/predator stereotype. As one of the sides of the asshole/nice guy double bind does not reflect the predator stereotype in the same manner both portions of the virgin/whore double bind do for prey, it undermines the reasoning behind
She contends that both men and women are harmed by the belief system that upholds the myth of the "nice guy," and that men have a duty to work toward dismantling it. Though it might be challenging for some men to accept Serano's argument, this is one possible weakness of her essay. The idea that their behavior toward women is problematic may be resisted by men who identify as "nice guys," and they may feel attacked or defensive. Providing a direct acknowledgment of this resistance and recommendations for how to overcome it would be beneficial for Serano's
Inquisition with Faith One of the many bible quotes states “I will never doubt that god has gotten me through every hard moment in my life.” In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, the author in fact wrestles with her faith while wrestling this idea. O'Connor's questioning of faith occurs in this short story through the use of distortion, symbolism, and characterization. O’Connors constant action of wrestling her own faith is strongly shown through the constant use of distortion.
In Flannery O’ Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” she presents to her readers a grandmother that gets herself and her family into trouble with a convict, known as The Misfit, while heading to Florida. The grandmother, old and concerned, convincing her son from going to Florida where The Misfit had escaped from. The grandkids aren’t looking forward to the trip with their grandmother. The grandmother hides her cat, Pitty Sing, in a basket so she can take it on the trip. While driving through Georgia, the family stops at a little restaurant called the Tower, owned by Red Sammy Butts.
Flannery O’Connor’s short stories have an underlying theme of redemption and grace. In her story “ A Good Man is Hard to find” that theme is very prevalent. In the way she presents the misfit and his horrible antics and still gives him redeeming qualities that really make him one of the most likable characters out of the whole story. Or in the grandmothers introduction when it seemed she was making her sound like a brass and cold, old woman when in reality she was a lost old soul who just needed a shot at redemption. It is even present in the numbers she choose in the story and the way they are closely inter-twined with religion.
Sometimes, people manipulate others in order to obtain their goal. In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, by Flannery O’Conner, portrays a grandmother as a witch, trying to influence others to their will. The manipulative grandmother leads her family to danger, causing the death of everybody, when she decides to join them on their trip to Florida. The grandmother, not wanting to go to Florida for vacation, first tries to convince her son, Bailey, to go to Tennessee instead of Florida, “seizing every chance to change Bailey’s mind” (138).
“A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” by Flannery O’Connor, is a short story about a stubborn grandmother that has her whole family killed by an escaped prisoner named the Misfit. This story is a work of theological literature that shows that violence can be an act of religious faith rather than simply pleasure. At first, the Misfit is portrayed as a psychopath murdering people for the fun of it but that is not true. He actually says that “It’s no real pressure in life (22).”
John Tierney’s article, “A Cold War Fought be Women” (2013), argues that “intrasexual competition” and the need for young women to meet the “standards of sexual conduct and physical appearance” are the most important causes of the pressures that women in our current society face. Tierney supports his argument with data from research on the interaction between women in situations that would trigger competition or indirect aggression. Tierney’s purpose is to argue that “stigmatizing female promiscuity” is administered to women by other female acquaintances in order to prove that the pressures that young women face are not to be “blamed on the ultrathin female role models” that are broadcasted in the media, but instead are a “result of competition
Flannery O’Connor has written many short stories. This one in particular “ A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is a short story that deals with selfishness, evil, death, and realization. Bailey’s mother was a selfish southern lady that used racial language. Throughout the story, you will realize the grandmother is the fault for all their deaths even her own. Her abrupt and selfish ways will get her faced to face with her killer.
Novelist, Roxane Gay, in her essay “The careless Language of Sexual Violence”, voices her concerns about rape culture and how it is perpetuated in today’s society. She uses anaphora, imagery, and rhetorical questions in order to demonstrate how society “carelessly” (131) normalizes rape. In her essay, Gay uses rhetorical questions and anaphora to further stress her concerns and talk about how writers are gratuitous when talking about rape. She opens her essay using anaphora comparing “crimes” to “atrocities.
To understand the implicit sexual violence, de Beauvoir’s argument about how the sexualization of young girls like Maria only happens “...through the intervention of the male, and this always constitutes a kind of violation” is the basis for the abuse (de Beauvoir 367). de Beauvoir further argues that all first sexual experiences are a form of violence, especially with such a significant age gap, and that it leads a girl to be “torn from her childhood universe and hurled into wifehood” because the sexual act is simultaneously an “...act of violence that changes a girl into a woman…” (de Beauvoir 367). This understanding of a “sexual initiation” can be seen in the fact that, even though Cayetano was not explicitly violent the actions carry an implicit violence. By stripping Maria of her innocence through sexualizing her and committing sexual acts against her she is violently forced into adulthood, in this case prematurely. The use of violence against Maria for Cayetano’s satisfaction is similar to Solanas’ belief that men are “completely egocentric, unable to relate, empathize or identify, and filled with a vast, pervasive, diffuse sexuality,” explains why Cayetano is able to justify to himself sexualizing her while denying her autonomy or ability to resist (Solanas 5).
In the story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, there is no doubt the reader should consider the grandmother a villain. Throughout the story, it is easy to assume the grandmother would eventually lead the family to some sort of downfall. The grandmother has many traits that make her a villain, and through her judgemental nature, selfish acts, and inability to stop talking, she leads her family and herself to their death. Throughout the story it is obvious that the grandmother is very judgemental of people and seems to consider herself as better than everyone.
Elements of Southern Gothic Literature has multiple impacts on the endings of stories. Flannery O’Connor used Southern Gothic Literature in her short stories such as “Good Country People”, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, and “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”. Flannery O’Connor uses spinsters, horifing endings, and mental insibility with one or more characters in the three stories previously mentioned. Flannery O’Connor used Souther Gothic Literature in many of her short stories for example, in “Good Country Poeple” O’Connor used spinsters, horrifying endings, and mental insibility.
She further describes the nice guys as virgins and assholes as whores. That is a general start to classifying a person, but it does not encompass the whole picture. There are also other binaries that Serano mentions in her article, such as the predator and the prey. It has been said that
People's way of thinking is strongly influenced by the patriarchal scheme of the culture in which they live, and their judgments deriving from this scheme are deeply embedded in their psyche. Gender roles within patriarchal society prescribe the hierarchical roles of men and women assumed to be “natural,” and labeled as “masculine” and “feminine” as if these categories were ontological. In this context, the heterosexual majority regards homosexuals as those who transgress traditional gender roles and thus violate the prescribed rules of the “proper” sexual behavior. It is being supposedly said that gender identity such as masculinity and femininity is not something inherent you born with but, a learned entity, a social construction. When John looks at his father’s penis in the bathroom, Gabriel beats up his son in order for John to become a “proper” man, and must not sexualized the male body.
Although there is some value to the functionalists’ interpretation, it contains several weaknesses. The following review of some aspects of the plot will reveal some of those weaknesses. According to O’Brien (Hale 2013, 82-83), radical feminists argue that the core issue surrounding men and women lies within the domination of sexuality by men. Concerning rape, it is said that women who are virgins are off limits whereas women who are who have lost their virginity are known as “open territory”.