Flannery O’Connor is a brilliant writer who constructs stories that most readers can easily relate to. O’Connor is known mostly for the religious views used throughout her short stories, but she routinely uses an abundance of other themes to convey messages and lessons to readers. Although her short stories consist of diverse characters who have opposing views on certain issues her stories are comparable.
In comparing both “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Everything That Rises Must Converge” it is evident that other themes such as: societal classification, local color, race issues, and family conflicts are extremely important in conveying a message by O’Connor because she uses each of these themes within these two stories. In addition, societal classification is a theme that appears throughout both “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” but this theme is obvious in its own distinct way in each story.
For example, in the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” it is evident early on that the grandmother considers herself to be in a higher classification due to the clothing she chooses to wear on the road trip. According to O’Connor, the grandmother dressed in this particular way because “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady”(544). The clothing can be a representation to readers of sophistication and the wealth of a character in the literary work.
In comparison, the societal classification theme is also shown in the story “Everything That Rises Must Converge. The readers can also see the classification that Julian’s mother considers herself to be a part of. Julian states, “She would not ride the buses by herself at night since they had been integrated” (“Everything” 568). Many readers feel that this quote shows that Julian’s mother feels she has a more important societal role above her colored counterparts that ride the bus with her. Other verifications to support the occurrence of this theme within the short story is when it is revealed that Julian’s mother is from old money.
Old money is a term which is used to indicate that a said person has or had money at one point in time. When this detail is revealed in the story, it adds to the societal classification theme. In turn, both show a great amount of the societal classification theme, and this theme helps improve the story and how it is interpreted by the readers. Furthermore, both of the works also share the same common theme of local color. Local color is a theme that O’Connor uses frequently in her writing.
The local color used in her work is normally related to the Deep South, and this is shown mostly through the speech of the characters within the stories. For instance, as stated in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” “My daddy said I was a different breed of dog from my brothers and sisters. You know, Daddy said, ‘it’s some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it’s others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters” (551). This quote is a great example of the local color in the south because it shows distinct ways in which some people communicate in everyday speech.
Although this is a great example of local color this is just one of the many ways of displaying local color within a story. To illustrate, “Everything That Rises Must Converge” shows local color by using idioms which O’Connor is famously known for using in her writing. According to Chan and Marinellie, idioms are best described as: Idioms are figurative expressions such as beat around the bush and skate on thin ice. Some have suggested that idioms are acquired as single lexical units or “giant words” and are stored and retrieved similar to other words in the mental lexicon (e. . , Qualls et al. 2003b; Swinney and Cutler 1979). However, this does not mean that idioms are not different from other words; they are very different in terms of their figurative meaning. Because of their figurative nature (i. e. , idioms are not interpreted literally), meanings of idioms cannot be directly determined by the meanings of their word elements.
Thus, the idiom beat around the bush must be approached and defined as a linguistic unit (i. e. , to avoid answering a question), rather than explaining the meaning of each individual word (i. e. to hit the shrub repeatedly in all directions). (Chan & Marinellie 2) In addition, the idiom that is used in “Everything That Rises Must Converge” is “that Roman wasn’t built in a day” (“Everything” 572). In summary, O’Connor uses local color throughout both of these works which adds more flair to her writing. Moreover, readers can also gather that both “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Everything That Rises Must Converge” consist of issues involving race, but race and racial slurs is the basis in which “Everything That Rises Must Converge” was written on.
The short stories were written during the time just before the country began to be integrated and in the coming years after the integration. O’Connor’s writings were based on the actual facts that she most likely saw or heard about on a day to day basis. As stated in “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” “They should rise, yes, but on their own side of the fence” (570). Many critics interpret this quote in the sense that colored people should be able to rise, but not to the point to outdo a white man or woman in any aspect of life.
They must stay just on the other side of the fence or in other words, just below any white individual. According to John Ower, “The designs of these pieces suggest a nexus of meanings relating to the social, racial and religious themes of “Everything That Rises … ” (107). Ower is referring to the penny and nickel, and how the coin symbolized the links between the reoccurring themes. To conclude, although both stories consist of racial issues “Everything That Rises Must Converge” is more racially oriented.
In addition, readers receive a sense of existing issues concerning racial injustice in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” but it is displayed subtle way compared to “Everything That Rises Must Converge. ” O’Connor places the subtle racial slurs throughout “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” within the stories the grandmother tells the children on the road trip. Critics believe O’Connor includes the racial slurs within this written work to give insight on issues during the time, but she uses minimal racial slurs, so the true underlying meaning of the story shines through.
Indeed, the most important comparison between both “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge” is the family conflicts within both stories. Both sets of mothers and sons disagree with one another and argue with each other throughout each story. Armond Boudreaux summarizes how the stories compare to one another by stating: At first glance, the two are remarkably similar: both stories center on the journey of an old woman and at least one member of her family; each of the old women is of the Old South and holds its values; and each woman finds herself the victim of seemingly random violence.
Reading the two stories together, however, reveals that “Everything That Rises,” far from telling the grandmother’s story over again, answers instead a disturbing question about grace and redemption that “A Good Man” raises and leaves unanswered: why Bailey, his wife, June Star, and John Wesley have to die at the hands of the Misfit’s minions so that the grandmother might receive salvation (151-152).
In turn, readers can see that the mothers represent the old south, and not only compare to one another in this way, but also in their unwavering determination not to change their beliefs involving societal classification and race. Although in “A Good Man Is Had to Find” the son Bailey never really challenges his mother in her beliefs regarding the societal classification and race issues, Julian which is the son in “Everything That Rises Must Converge” does challenge his mother on these issues.
Above all the conflicts that the families have with one another is the leading factor to why the two stories are so similar. Further, oth short stories can be compared and contrasted by the themes O’Connor uses; however, critics consider that O’Connor wrote “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” for the pleasure of writing, but the finished product raised questions in O’Connor’s mind. Critics conclude that O’Connor wrote another short story years later which elaborated on issues that were in some way connected to “A Good Man Is Hard to Find. ”
Finally, “Everything that Rises Must Converge” was published in 1965 ten years after “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” and readers were able to make the connection that O’Connor realized after writing “A Good Man Is Hard to find. In conclusion, readers can see that both “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Everything That Rises Must Converge” have many similarities, but also lend a helping hand to one another when trying to interpret the literary meaning of the writings. Flannery O’Connor is a truthful writer that conveys her messages and lessons through: societal classification, local color, racial issues, and family conflict themes that grasp a reader’s attention due to how relatable her finished product is.
