In her short stories, Flannery O’Connor brings her characters to a moment of epiphany when it is no longer possible for them to return to the old ways of life. The proud are humbled, the ignorant are enlightened, and the hypocritical are forced to recognize that the discrepancy between their smug surface and its hollow spirituality is the proof of their inadequacy in the eyes of God. For O’Connor, this epiphanal moment can only be achieved by violence and destruction: “In my own stories I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace…. We hear many complaints about the prevalence of violence in modern fiction, and it is always assumed that this violence is a bad thing and meant to be an end in itself. With the serious writer, violence is never an end in itself. It is the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially” (“On Her Own Work”).
In the three stories we read (“A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” “Good Country People,” “Everything That Rises Must Converge”), can you find any “moments of epiphany” which are produced in extreme violent situations? How do these violent situations “reveal” the hidden message of God? What mysterious transformations have the characters undergone when they are shocked into an awareness of their smug ignorance?
31 comments:
I can find that the“moments of epiphany” which are produced in extreme violent situations in the paragraph 134 of “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”. “Jesus was the only One that ever raise the dead,” ….no pleasure but meanness,” and the epiphany also appeared in the next paragraph, “The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them.”
I think these violent situations “reveal” the importance of redemption. If a person not forgives the other person, the tragedy will happen just like this story. The grandmother keep talking and shouting in the car, and she recognized the criminal at last. However, she still believes the Misfit is a good man at heart. She began to pray, but in vain. That was the point that author would like to present. We can say the paragraph 136 reveals the smug of the ignorance. Through the conversation, we can see the clue. “It ain’t right I wasn’t there because if I had of been there I would of known….she murmured, Why you’re one of my babies. You are one of my children!” the grandmother should be aware of waking up at the same time. He was not the good man anymore. The mysterious transformation is between the thought of the Misfit and the grandmother. The grandmother thought that she was the saver, but actually she was not.
In my opinion, I found the moment of epiphany is in paragraph 136 of A Good Man Is Hard to Find, “Why you’re one of my babies. You are one of my children! She reached out and touched him on the shoulder.” In this paragraph, the grandmother shows her redemption to the criminal. She tried to reform Misfit that he is a good man; however, Misfit did not accept what she said. In addition, he treated her like her son and grandsons. Besides, the grandmother turned into a different person. From a selfish woman to a woman who is full of love. Even when she was dead, her face was smiling up at the cloudless sky. It means she became a woman who has some similarities of God, that is to say, she had the moment of epiphany before she died.
I think the moment of epiphany in the paragraph 136 of A Good Man Is Hard to Find reveals some messages of God. “The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them.” I think this is the moment that the grandmother is given the grace from God. It is not until the moment she almost dies that she finally realizes her values in the past are stupid and superficial.
“Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” Before she is shot, she forgives herself and also The Misfit with love. I think that’s why she says that to him. At the end of her live, the grandmother has transcended herself. She is not the selfish, vainglorious, hypocritical and superficial old woman anymore. In paragraph 140, The Misfit said “She would of been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minutes of her life.” I think the author wants tell us that most of the people only correct their errors and make new fresh starts in the end. She uses the violent story to show us the reality. However, no matter what fault or sin the characters commit, the author will always arrange the moment of grace from God for them with sympathy in the end.
I think the part of the epiphany in Good Country People starts at paragraph 135. The epiphany in this story did not happen suddenly; it was a gradual process. Everything was all well until Pointer opened his valise. She read the description on the blue box and then dropped it. This was when Hulga realize that things are becoming creepy. Then he gave her the flask of whiskey, which made Hulga froze on the spot. I think the situation is dawning on her. The violent part starts when he tells her about not believing in the crap of God and insults Hulga’s pride. The appearance of Pointer and his behavior was like God’s message to Hulga, telling her that she must be humble and that she is not as smart as she really thinks. Just because she had had a high education doesn’t mean that she knows everything. In the end, O’Connor describes her face as “churning”. Hulga is struggling inside to the point that it shows on her face that was once devoid of any emotion. When she looked at Pointer leaving, it was a blue figure paired up with a green background. Blue for health for Hulga has found a cure for her smug and blinded heart. Green because from now on she may open herself to a new world like a newborn baby, seeing things in another perspective for the first time.
In “Good Country People”, I think the epiphany is when Manley Pointer rejected to put Hulga’s peg leg back for her, and also when he open the valise, and what more astonished is there were whiskey, a pack of cards in the Bible. It reveals that Hulga is not so smart as what she thinks. He is young, innocent, and wholesome, leading to Hulga’s fantasy about seducing him and having to deal with his remorse. And I think Hulga should not treat her mother so bad and could trust a person who she get acquaintance in just a few days. Nowadays, there are people who are physically-challenged have optimistic thought unlike she is full of remorse. Life is full of challenges, though her mother’s ignorant,she has to take to her mother what she really wants is to be cared. Finally, she changed, from smug to new-born.
I found a moment of epiphany in the paragraph 37 in A Good Man Is Hard to Find. When the grandmother is going to be killed, her head cleared for an instant. She tries to convince The Misfit not to kill her and call him one of her babies. I think it’s her moment of epiphany because she tolerates The Misfit’s sin and sees him her child. Here, I think, reveals God’s messages. The grandmother always regards herself as a noble lady and look down on others. When she is dying, she soon becomes a kind woman. It may mean that everyone must take everything that you can’t take it before. Just like God, he will forgive everyone who wants to atone for his/her crimes. Although the grandmother is killed in the end of the story, she still smiles. She has her moment of salvation and redemption because she dies for The Misfit’s crimes like Jesus did for the people who want to kill him. They all died for others.
In the beginning of the story, I found the grandmother is a superficial woman. All she cares about is her behavior noble or not. She seems smug about everything she has. When she sees black people, the state of her mind is more obvious. She ethnically slurs over the black people and says”Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!” But when she faces the dangerous situation, her smug behavior disappears. She undergoes the mysterious transformations but it seems too late. Because she dies soon, she can’t correct her behavior toward her family and the people around her.
I think the moment of epiphany is at paragraph 136 which is produced in extreme violent situation of “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” The grandmother is very smug before, she considers herself a lady in high social status, but she turns into a kind woman before she die. She even thinks Misft is her son and also a good man. However, Misft doesn’t care about it and kill her in the end. The author wants to tell us only in an extreme violent situation, people who like the grandmother can turn in to a good person. After the grandmother die, her face like a child’s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky. Maybe that means she forgive Misfit, just like God forgive people who want to atone for their crimes. However, I think it is still too late to realize about that. She can not get anything back. Everything she smug about before seem meaninglessly now.
I think the epiphany in A Good Man Is Hard to Find is on paragraph 136. The context is,” The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them.” The three shots which are given by the Misfit are like a sudden shock to the grandmother. They at once let the grandmother know that her words which seem divine are actually no use. Unfortunately, the time that she realizes is the time her life ends.
In the story of Everything That Rises Must Converge, I find that the moment of epiphany is after the violent situation. After Julian’s mother is beaten by the Negro woman, it seems that it’s the time for her to realize how wrong she is. Julian wants to preach to her, and there’s a chance for her to understand on her own. But the bad thing is Julian’s mother has a stroke. She’ll never know what ridiculous thing she has done. As to Julian, he can never let his mother know that his mean attitude isn’t on purpose. He just doesn’t want his mother to be stupid and funny.
In the first story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, the grandmother seems to be superior person and a elegant lady, but she is actually an arrogant, selfish and hypocritical old woman as the author reveals to us. She looks down on black people, and speaks of them in a rude way (Negro and pickaninny). Towards the end of the story, after all her family members gave been killed, the grandmother heard a crack in the Misfit’s voice and her head cleared for an instant, she murmured to him “You are one of my babies. You are one of my own children!” And touches the Misfit on the shoulder, and the Misfit shoot her to death. She seems to be died happily by smiling to the sky, which it stands for a moment of salvation. The Misfit was shock by the transformation grandmother had, it is clear that he had been influenced by it in the end of the story by saying, “It’s no real pleasure in life.” As reader, we can somehow understand that killing the grandma isn’t a pleasure, it actually bring trouble to him. In the second story “Good Country People”, our heroine Hulga feels good about herself, she gained her Ph.D. and thinks that she is intellectually superior to others. She encountered a boy who claims loving her but later turned out to be a swindler. It is when the boy took away her artificial limb (a leg) and ran away; the moment of epiphany comes when she saw the boy’s blue figure struggling successfully over the green speckled lake. (Blue stands for heaven and green stand for reborn) This somehow changes Hulga and via violence, the boy became an instrument of God. The last story “Everything That Rises Must Converge” is talking about that black people are rising and Julian’s mother, however, still lives in the past. She thinks that she is condescending (“I can be gracious to anybody” and “I know who I am”) but she is actually a smug woman that feels good about herself. She wears a hat that symbolizes her superiority and social status, and this weird-looking hat also appears on a black woman. This put Julian’s mother and the black woman in the same status, but eventually, the hat and the fate but converge. Julian went through a moment of epiphany by seeing her mother been stricken to death. He was shocked by violence and he can do nothing to save her “darling, sweetheart” mamma. Flannery O’Connor often uses the figure of a bad guy to pass down God’s message, which is “don’t be so cocky and thinks that you are better than others, but you are not. We must be humble and modest because we are all equal in front of God. O’Conner also criticizing herself possesses a sense of superiority, is it right to be that kind of person?
I want to talk about the epiphany in the first story “A Goodman Is Hard to Find“.
The moment when the grandmother faces death, she gets an apocalypse from the God. It is a contrary situation. She is in such a violence situation which she is going to be killed, but she realizes a tolerant feeling, a kind of big love. She gets the message that love all people, no matter he is a normal person or an atrocious criminal.
She yells Misfit that you are one of my babies. The grandmother is the incarnation of God. Everyone in the world is the son of the God. No matter you are great or bad, you are always one of God’s babies. I think it is what the author wants to share with us.
The grandmother also changes her personality when she faces death. First, she is a smug woman, who takes herself in the high position, and after she gets the apocalypse from the God, she becomes tolerant and she knows what’s wrong with herself in the past times. This event also marks on Misfit’s heart. It may change Misfit’s personality, too. Via this kind of event, bad guy is possible to be good.
In my opinion, within the three short stories of Flannery O’Connor, she has brought her characters to a moment of epiphany when it is no longer possible for them to return to the old ways of life. The most obvious one which show the moment of epiphany in the extreme violent situations is “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. There is big transformation for the grandmother and the Misfit. When the Misfit is going to kill the grandmother, she reaches the epiphany. “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children.” She seems to get supernatural power suddenly that to do something she didn’t capable before. When she dies, her face is smiling, which have some possible impact on Misfit. “Without his glasses, The Misfit’s eyes were red-rimmed and pale and defenceless-looking.” He is undergone some transformation that he feels deeply disturb by this incident. The characters have their own transformation once they experienced death. They realise how ignorance and how selfish they are. This reveals some hidden message of God. People’s self-righteousness and self-assuredness explode to their ignorant and blind, people will misjudge the entire situation, thinking they are superior to others. And once they face the death, they will understand how non-special they are and discover how they are the same with others.
I think that the moment of epiphany in A Good Man Is Hard to Find is in paragraph 136. Grandma said “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children.” From Misfit’s confession, grandma saw her own aspect of ugly mind. In the beginning, she just wanted to beg for survive so she induced Misfit to think of God and his mistakes what he had made. However, from his sincere talk, finally grandma had a direct sharp warning. She was a person who is the same as Misfit. They concealed their defects such as would not want touch it and would not want to admit it and they use different way to cover it. Before she died, she got redemption from God. She also forgave Misfit like God, because she knew that she had no qualifications to censure the one who saved her sin.
In the story, ’’A Good Man Is Hard to Fine’’, the grandmother is the main character. She was very selfish, hypocritical and narcissistic. Besides, she imaged everything she wanted or liked in the real life. In fact, the grandmother just led a dream life and couldn’t face the truth. The Misfit appeared and shot all her family members. The grandmother was the last one and she said, ’’You are one of my own children.’’ This sentence meant that God love everybody on the ground. We were all God’s children and he would protect us from being hurt. On the other hand, it was sound ridiculous and laughable. In order to exist, she could tell an untruth lie. So, she still couldn’t escape the horrifying fate.
The story told us that people couldn’t be smug, selfish and hypocritical or you may suffer some bad things. I think that the grandmother was forgiven in the end because before she was shot by Misfit, she experienced a moment of grace right. This also means if you know own mistakes, God will forgive you.
I find the “moments of epiphany” in the paragraph 136 of A Good Man Is Hard to Find, “Why you’re one of my babies. You‘re one of my own children! ” I think that it reveals salvation and redemption to The Misfit. The grandmother wants to persuade The Misfit not to kill her. Not only she doesn’t want to be killed by him, but also the grandmother doesn’t want The Misfit to do more wrong things. God is always forgives people no matter what they do or who they are. Everyone in the world is his babies if you want. He doesn’t object anybody to become his children. And the grandmother believes in the god, so she does the same thing with god that forgives the person who killed her because her face is smiling when she died. The author wants to show the importance of forgiving. And it also can change the people’s personality. At the beginning, the grandmother remembers the wrong place of the house, but she doesn’t say because she didn’t want to be scolded. That show she is selfish. Afterwards, she becomes merciful because she chooses to forgive him. And The Misfit also changes his personality in the end. He doesn’t think killing people is a pleasure. So, the bad guy isn’t certainly bad forever. Bed guy is the same good person if they accept something.
I would like to talk about moments of epiphany in “Good Country People”. I think the epiphany of this story is not as violent as another two stories. Nobody dies. However, I think that the artificial leg being taken away represents taking away her guard of her heart to be humble and sincere to God. I think the very violent situation is that the Bible salesman took Hulga’s artificial leg away and said to her, “You ain’t so smart…” I think Hulga must be shocked by such a strong sentence, especially for her pride toward her intelligence. This situation reveals that pride is a sin in the bible. And the young man happens to give Hulga an epiphany by violently insulting her. Hulga doesn't act so furiously because she realizes that she had been smugly ignorant in her past life.
In my opinion, I think the author use the violence to describe the story is wanted to extremely give the reader hard impression. In ‘’ A Good Man Is Hard to Find ’’ we can find out that in the beginning of the story, it is the normal family just wanted to go on vacation. It’s a little fun and relaxing. Until the car accidence, the situation started to change. The moment of epiphany is when the grandmother said “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!’’ Here is a transformation about the grandmother. She forgave the Misfit. It is not only the salvation of the Misfit but also the salvation of herself. She was arrogant and smug before.
She saved herself from the past then became the kind woman. But it is still too late. All her families were died.
In the “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, I think the moment of epiphany is occur in paragraph 106. “……, swaying slightly as if the spots of light in the darkness were circling around her. Her eyes shadowed and confused, ……” After apparent stroke, Julian’s mother realizes that her self-righteous kindness to everyone including black people, doesn’t have any meaning anymore and her old thinking is to be abandoned by the times, the desegregation. Besides, I think the stroke of Julian’s mother just like a kind of punishment from God, not only alarming Julian’s mother also the mess.
In the same time, Julian sees how disabled her mother is, he suddenly understand his past behavior to his mother is such a ridiculous things, even if he has high education, he can’t conceal his ignorant.
Julian’s mother gives the little boy penny, but she was shouted and shocked by the huge woman who wears the same hat as she. This is a kind of transformation of thinking, with the new generation comes up, Africans think that they are free, not to be controlled by white people. So they can wear the same clothes as white people. And it also highlights the absurdity of segregation.
COMMENT BY AMY SUN
“A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”: In the end of paragraph 136 and 137, the grandmother said that “You are one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” And she reached out and touched him on the shoulder. However, the Misfit still shot her and took off his glasses and began to clean them then. I think it means a kind of freeing a person from suffering by God. Clean the glasses, as I said, just like a proud of this killer. Finally, the lady forgave him and accepted him to be her only child. The grandmother felt very comfortable after this executing because her face smiling up at the cloudless sky. It symbolized her soul was free. God wanted to release her.
“Good Country People”: In the paragraph 145, 146 and 147, “when she turned her churning face toward the opening, she saw is blue figure struggling successfully over the green speckled lake.”, “Some can’t be that simple,” she said. “I know I never could.” Above sentences showed that Hulga understood something in her live. This truth was brought by God was it’s not simple at all in this world, be smart and didn’t believe everybody easily. This liar might be the emissary from God and specially to remind the truth to the simple girl.
“Everything That Rises Must Converge” In the paragraph 106, this mother took the hand and, swaying slightly as if the spots of light in the darkness were circling around her. As far as I concerned, this light might be an awakening of her, God wanted to tell her there were nothing should be discriminate. And her lovely boy didn’t agree with her behavior at all. How frustrate it was to a mother!
I think the moment of epiphany in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is on paragraph 136. When the grandmother was facing her death, she understood how she has gone wrong in her life. She finally realized that she was not so superior to others. Besides, we could find that she was able to see others with compassion and understanding when she told the Misfit that he is “one of her own children”. I think this is a moment of epiphany, which was often followed by a destructive situation in O’Connor’s novels. When the grandmother reached out her hands and touched the Misfit, she completed the transition from an arrogant woman to a selfless one. In the end of the story, she died with a smile on her face, which symbolized the forgiveness for her sins, including her self-centered ways, her racism, and her lying. Having received the grace of God, she became the “good woman” who is hard to find.
I think the hidden message of God is that even people like the grandmother and Misfit have the potential to be saved by God. Although the Misfit had claimed earlier that there was “no pleasure but meanness” in life, he now denied that there is any pleasure in life at all. Killing has ceased to bring him happiness, implying that he may be the next one to change.
The unnamed grandmother in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is an ethic, slur, hypocritical and selfish old lady. When the Misfit murders the family, the grandmother never once begs him to spare her children or grandchildren. Only when the grandmother is facing death, in her final moments alone with the Misfit, she understand where she has gone wrong in her life. Instead of being superior, she realizes, she is flawed like everyone else. When she tells the Misfit that he is “one of her own children,” she is showing that she has found the ability to see others with compassion and understanding. It is the moment of epiphany for her.
“Good country people” is a religious novel. Flannery O’connor use the villain to convey message from god that hubris people would fail eventually. Throughout the story it is clear that Hulga wants to have total control over her life and belief system, and thinks she's doing very well with it. Manley, a traveling Bible salesman, hits on the 'trigger' of Hulga's vulnerability when he asks for the leg because he is really asking her to submit herself to him body and soul. She open to the action of God's real grace in her life after suffer the emotionally cruel.
The key paragraph of the story “everything that rises must converge” is in page 331, Julian finds himself unable to connect to other people on their own terms, particularly across racial lines. Julian’s unrealistic perception of blacks and racial equality, therefore, isolates him from reality.
Ironically, the climax of the story pushes Julian’s mother even further back into the past. After her apparent stroke, she becomes confused and disoriented, calling out for her father and her nurse, Caroline, both of whom are long dead, because she associates them with security and comfort.
I think most people are morally smug like characters in these stories.
In my opinion, these three of Flannery O’Connor’s works are all shocking the readers, and are presenting O’Connor’s way of message. Moment of epiphany under violence seems to stand for O’Connor’s style of works. Take “Good Country People” for instance, “Show me where your wooden leg joins on,” the man said, and then he took the slake leg off himself. After the girl said “Put it back on,” the man just leave her waiting, even showed what’s in his valise; two bibles, but actually none one of them is bible. Another epiphany is when he said “I hope you don’t think that I believe in that crap! (Christianity)...” The most frightening me is when he said “One time I got a woman’s glass eye this way….And you needn’t think you’ll catch me because Pointer ain’t really my name.” Degrees of epiphany burst out a layer at a time, tension progressively.
God may want to say, don’t ever be too cocky and too believe in someone else, and don’t believe what we see, things may reveal at last; sometimes we think we are superior over others so we can control over him or her, but in fact that we are being control.
Hulga, may be abundance in knowledge but lack in know how to treat people. She seems intelligent but she isn’t wise. “Some can’t be that simple, I know I never could.” She finally got her transformations. Smug ignorance would occur on anybody, just be more aware after reading the story.
During the story “A good man is hard to find”, this moment of grace is hugely important in the story. The Misfit kills the grandmother, recoiling from what seems so foreign to him, but the grandmother has already had her moment of redemption. She's grown at the moment of death more than she ever did before in her life, and dies with a peaceful smile on her face.
What's more, her act may have changed The Misfit too. At the end, he says she would have been a good woman if he'd been there all her life to shoot her. This is a strange line, but think about what it means. The grandmother was redeemed by confronting evil in The Misfit, and finding the ability within herself to pity him. The Misfit's response shows that he recognizes her act as goodness, even though he recoiled from it. It's also noteworthy that in his last line he goes from claiming that the only pleasure in life is "meanness" to stating that "It's no real pleasure in life." Killing the grandmother gave him no pleasure. Instead it troubles him. In that way, grace has worked on him too, and we might see the beginnings of a deep transformation. For O'Connor, then, the story's ending is hopeful.
In the story A Good Man Is Hard to Find, I thought in the beginning the story is little fun, the family want to go to a vacation. But in the vacation, someting make the story different. I think the moment of epiphany is when the grandmother said “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!’’ In the paragraph, grandma for Misfit. I thought that gramdma not only rescue herself but also rescue Misfit. She rescue herself. But it is too late, his family all dead. In the story is like our true life. When we found something is different, we start to regret our mistake. But we can’t change anything, because it is too late.
Shawn said:
"A good man is hard to find"
When I first saw this topic, I thought it might be a love story, but latter I read it and I found the story is about the feelings of extensive and complex love but not only between men and women.
In the story, once the old lady talks with the boss about the fugitive, And the boss says that if the fugitive appears here, she would not be surprised. The boss also mentions that he recently has credit generously give people, and he does not know what for the reason.
Later, the old lady replies: “Because you’re a good man!” And the boss replies: “ A good man is hard to find .” “Every thing is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more.”
However, they have a car accident in their way of journal, and after the accident, there are three passers-by, the family stop them and request them for help, but the old lady unexpectedly recognizes one of these is the murderous fugitive Misfit.
While the old lady talks: “I believe that you will not kill an old lady, and tells Misfit about theology and religion. But Misfit’s associates drag the family of old lady into the woods and shoot them. Old lady has been tensioned, and she wanted to influence Misfit by Jesus
In the end, She seems to have consciousness, and says: “You are one of my children.” She believes that She forgives Misfit, but at the last Misfit killed her, and says: “she would of been a good woman”, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” And cold-blooded Misfit says: “Shut up. It,s no real pleasure in life.”
In my opinion, I think if we often help others and so do people help us, and good people will be around of us.
In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, I think the moment of epiphany started after grandmother heard two pistol shot. In paragraph 108 which O’Conner wrote the grandmother’s head jerked around, I think it can be interpreted as God’s entering to her mind that she suddenly became a religious person. She started to keep telling Misfit to pray and they even talked about God and belief. I think the hidden massage of God here is to believe in God, and then you will be forgiven. The grandma became more and more religious after hearing the following three shots, and she also even tried more hard to convince Misfit to pray for God and believe in Him. Afterward, the grandmother said that Misfit is one of her babies and children, which I suppose that she is not herself anymore but God or God’s messenger. Besides that, “You are one of my own children!” is the last sentence what grandmother said loudly, and then she touched Misfit’s shoulder. This can be considered as a sign that God is going to accept Misfit. In the end, grandmother was still died with her face smiling up at the cloudless sky, which shows that she was done her duty to convince Misfit to be a good man and was happy to return to the heaven.
In “A good man is hard to find”, paragraph 82. The old grandma screamed, ”you’re the misfit!” After she screamed, the Misfit would murder them.
In my opinion, the misfit appearing is a message from god. He is Hermes, who delivered the message from the god. The interaction between grandma and Misfit.. For Misfit, maybe grandma was the angel from the heaven. When Misfit killed grandma, I think there was something changed in his mind. If I was Misfit, I would shock by old grand ma. I believe that he was only shocked by grandma and shot her by his instinct. He was not seriously wanted to kill her. For grandma, she was afraid and wanted to survive. She may be out of her mind, so she recognized that Misfit was her son. This is my opinion.
An epiphanal moment can be achieved by violence and destruction, but it seems to me that violence and destruction is not the ONLY way to reach epiphany. Violence can help to reach epiphany; for instance, in Zen Buddhism the patriarchs often use violence, such as kicking, berating, or even killing, to help the disciples to reach enlightenment. They called this a method of BangHe/棒喝.
So it seems to me we sometimes, but not always, need to use violence to reach an epiphanal moment is for the sake of detaching our habitual tendency. In order to break constant patterns of thought and action, extreme response is necessary. It would be a very efficient way to re-adjust mindset and point of view toward life. For instance, when a person is informed that he gets cancer, this sudden news will let him feel shock in the beginning, and then awakened. The fact of getting cancer is very cruel, but this violence will cause him to reflect his past life and return his attention back to his present situation. He may quick his job or change his work and life style. He will reconsider what is the most important to him. In brief, he may get an experience like epiphany through sudden illness. (But we have to say that “moments of epiphany” may not always be produced in extreme violent situations. For instance war is extreme violent but limited people are shocked into an awareness. Terrible disasters such as earthquake are the same.)
In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, a phony Christian, i.e. the grandmother, comes to be genuinely converted through an act of violence finally. At last the grandmother suddenly exclaims "Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!", and reaches out and touches The Misfit. (But he recoils and shoots the grandmother three times.) This action manifests she reaches the moment of epiphany, and therefore she humbles herself, realizing that she's no better than a murderer and misfit herself. In “Good Country People,” Hulga is a smug girl who has advanced academic degrees, but at that point the liar disappears with her leg after telling her that he collects prostheses from disabled people and is an atheist. She realizes that he is not "good country people." She is shocked into an awareness of her smug ignorance and reaches an epiphanal moment. In “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, Julian’s mother reaches an epiphanal moment when a black mother beat her for her racial discrimination and smugness. After this, Julian also reaches an epiphanal moment knows his smugness when he sees weakness and panic of his mother.
By Kent Lin
Produced in extreme violent situation, the moment of epiphany is in paragraph 120, “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, when Julian cried “Mother! Darling, sweetheart...”
I think these words represented Julian’s pure and innocent love of her mother, which is without barriers and bias. Julian had realized his ignorant blind was from his knowledge, which made him self-righteous and smug.
However, it is too late for him. The epiphany was revealed through her mother’s death. Maybe such a traumatic lesson would have him remember it for good and all.
I think the key that had changed Julian’s mind is “his entry into the world of guilt and sorrow” due to “A tide of darkness seemed to be sweeping her from him” when Julian’s mother collapsed in the end of the story.
Another epiphany is in paragraph 136, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” when grandma said “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!”
I think these words also revealed pure love, but in here, it has more general and universal meanings since grandma “reached out and touched him (The Misfit) on the shoulder”
And the key that had brought out the epiphany is, again, the death.
But a little bit difference is that grandma surpassed her fear of death, and put off her selfish thought of being alive. Eventually, she did right and got the epiphany. It’s not only for The Misfit’s sake but also for her own effort.
As I know, a real Christian should not be afraid of death. So I think these words are illogical “Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I’ll give you all the money I’ve got!” Maybe grandma would have been a good Christian if there were someone to shoot her every moment of her life.
As far as I am concerned, I think that Flannery O’Connor use the sense of violence not only give reader the hard impression but also convey the circumstances of people confront the fear. I think the moment of epiphany is when the grandmother said “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!’’ Here is a transformation about the grandmother. Misfit was shock by the transformation grandmother had, it is clear that he had been influenced by it in the end of the story by saying, “It’s no real pleasure in life.” So, it makes the title more ambiguous. The title is “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, but in the end, Misfit was touched by what grandmother said. But, it was too late to avoid the tragedy. The family was dead and Misfit kept sinning. In my opinion, though it’s a kind of tragedy story, just like the other two stories which written by Flannery O’Connor, it has some positive connotation in it.
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