![]() It’s like she saw something and she wrote what she saw, and that was that. It won’t fall into conventional Christian or literary categories. I would venture to say that if a reader is honest with herself, she will admit to her utter perplexity.įlannery accomplishes in this story a profound gesture at human nature and its mystery. I am both of these things, and I have realized the error of my ways. If you’re an English major, and you’ve read a lot of literary criticism, you’re probably pretty confident you can get something out of this story. If you’re Catholic, and you’ve heard of Flannery’s Catholicism, you’re probably thinking you might get it. It puts you through so much humor (if you read it right) and so much suspense (if you read it at all) and then it shoots you in the face. When I was in high school, I was pretty ticked off by the whole thing - much like my own students. I think that if you think you know, you are probably wrong or deluding yourself.Īnd that is precisely what I have come to love about this story. My answer is: I don’t know. I don’t pretend to know. The feeling often is - why did she put us through all of this? ![]() Most readers just don’t “get it.” What the heck is O’Connor trying to say? What’s the message? What’s the theme? And what does she mean by “A Good Man,” anyway? What bothers people about this story isn’t so much as the violence (we are certainly used to that) as the purposelessness of it. You may be startled by her voice – I was, at first. Or if you prefer, you could listen to Flannery reading it to you. There’s no use reading what I say here unless you have read it. If you read “A Good Man is Hard to Find” in high school, you probably remember it with unease and distaste. I mention these other two stories, despite the subject of my post, because somehow I feel as though they appropriately contextualize what I am about to say even though I could not clearly explain to you exactly why that is. Even kids who don’t like to read usually like this story. The hunter is bored with animals, and eventually settles upon Man as the truly worthy prey. “A Most Dangerous Game” involves a young man trapped by a hunter of big game. Oddly, though, it’s one of my very favorite stories. ![]() I was haunted by it for years, and still am. Porter wrote this story long before she converted to Catholicism, so it’s treatment of death is particularly arresting. In astonishment at the nothingness that awaits her, she blows out the candle of her life. Ironically, at the end of her life, she realizes she is being “jilted” by another Bridegroom, God. She is an old woman who is dying and remembering fragments of her life–in particular the “jilting” she experienced as a young woman. I was borne through the wandering and failing mind of the protagonist as she shoos away her concerned children at her deathbed. I don’t remember what my junior English teacher told me about any of that, but I do remember being transfixed by the story itself. High school English teachers often use Porter’s “Weatherall” story to teach “stream of consciousness” when they’re covering a modernism unit. I have found, in conversations with friends, that at least two of these are very frequently remembered by others as well. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor “A Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter There are only three short stories that I distinctly remember reading in high school:
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