Project 3 - English Essay on book material PDF

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Betances 1 Carlos Betance Vito Gulla ENGL 103 4 June 2018 Dubliners Vs. A Good Man is Hard to Find In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor and Dubliners by James Joyce both authors illustrate how each of their stories played a vital role in the development of their themes. O’Connor known for her southern gothic literature portrayed to her audience how her diction and syntax contributed to the theme of religion. Even though O'Connor's vision was essentially religious, she chose to present it from a primarily comic or grotesque perspective. In Dubliners all these stories are united by the ideas that the tales dramatize: paralysis, corruption, and death. Joyce makes sure that the characters fail to move forward, tending rather to forge outward and then retreat, or else circle endlessly. In Dubliners, Joyce uses his diction to develop the themes of the overall stories. The Prison of routine is a recurring theme that set an impact in the lives of the characters in the stories. Restrictive routines and the repetitive details of everyday life mark the lives of Joyce’s Dubliners and trap them in circles of frustration, and violence. The young boy of “An Encounter” yearns for a respite from the rather innocent routine of school, only to find himself sitting in a field listening to a man recycle disturbing thoughts. In “Counterparts,” Farrington, who makes a living copying documents, demonstrates the dangerous potential of repetition. Farrington’s work mirrors his social and home life, causing his anger and abusive behavior to take a toll on his life. Farrington, with his explosive physical reactions, illustrates more than any other character the brutal actions of a repetitive existence. Many of the characters in Dubliners were held to some sort of confinement that gripped their lives unable to make change in their situation. In a Little Cloud, Little Chandler can’t help himself but ask all these questions. “Could

Betances 2 he not escape from his little house? Was it too late for him to try to live bravely like Gallaher? Could he go to London? There are also many temporary escapes in relations to music, alcohol, and dreaming about leaving the city. In A Boarding House “He longed to ascend through the roof and fly away to another country where he would never again hear of his trouble”. In this quote you can see how Bob was in confinement and was pushed down by force. The desire to escape was evident in many of the stories in Dubliners. The theme of escape tends to be a trend when characters are faced with critical decisions. In the stories “Eveline, “Counterparts”, and the “Dead”, characters are faced with decisions that shape their lives. They clearly represent Joyce’s views on people’s discontent with Ireland. He belittles his daughter and is unappreciative to her contributions to the family. This is the main reasoning behind Eveline’s desire to escape her life and Ireland. Eveline states, “The promise to her mother, her promise to keep the home together as long as she could”. She unselfishly chooses her priorities and commitments over her happiness and future. Joyce's third and last major theme in Dubliners is death. He links this theme closely to the prior two and could be defined as resulting from a kind of spiritual or moral death. The events of "The Sisters" are caused by the death of Father Flynn, whose corpse the story's boy protagonist eventually sees face to face. Deaths are also implied in this story, and in "Araby" those of the boys' parents, absent from both tales. In a “Good Man is Hard to Find” O’Connor illustrates how her diction evolves around the theme of religion. O’Connor’s writing is primarily centered around religion which plays a vital role into the development of her themes. The conflict between the grandmother and The Misfit is centered around Jesus. Now, this is where the theme of religion is connected to Jesus and Christianity. O'Connor made plenty of references to heaven and hell. O'Connor writes, "The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled". O'Connor was

Betances 3 referencing heaven in this statement because it’was as if heaven to everyone in the world is this beautiful white palace. This foreshadows what happens at the end of the story and makes sure the audience notices all her white attire. "The grandmother noticed how thin his shoulder blades were just behind his hat because she was standing up looking down on him. "Do you ever pray?" she asked. The Misfit shook his head. All she saw was the black hat wiggle between his shoulder blades. "Nome," he said." The Misfit's doubt in Jesus leads him to think that there is no real good or evil and no real reason to live. Early on in “The River” O’Connor explores the theme of religion. This is noticeable when Mrs Connin tells Harry’s father that she intends to take Harry to a Christian Revival meeting to see the preacher Bevel Summers. O’Connor’s physical description of Mrs Connin, when she is in the apartment collecting Harry and when she is falling asleep on the tram may also be important. On both occasions O’Connor describes Mrs Connin as looking as a skeleton. It is possible that O’Connor is highlighting to the reader that Mrs Connin is symbolically naked, which in turn may suggest that she is nearer to God. It is also possible that O’Connor may be suggesting that Mrs Connin is open or ready to accept God into her life. In “Parkers Back” O’Connor involves parker, and a serious of tattoos to incorporate how his life decisions lead him to a continuation of more tattoos. All these tattoos symbolize what parker has gone through in his life. After the incident with the tractor and the tree, Parker goes to the tattoo artist to get an image of God tattooed onto his back. It is while Parker is in the city getting the tattoo that the reader becomes aware that Parker is trying to ignore that he has had a spiritual awakening. Parker’s Back ends with Sarah looking at Parker’s tattoo and having to be told by Parker that it is an image of God. Sarah is displeased and starts screaming “Idolatry”. This imagery is important because again O’Connor is using symbolism, this time symbolizing Jesus

Betances 4 on the cross and it is through this comparison to Jesus that the reader realizes that Parker has obtained grace. As you can see both books portray similarities and differences that correlate with their development of their different themes. In Dubliners Joyce focuses more on escape, paralysis, corruption and of course religion. Joyce holds the Roman Catholic church accountable for the failure of the Irish to flourish like the rest of Europe. There is a substantial amount of deaths that Joyce portrays in his characters symbolizing the dramatization of his point of view. All of these knits the book's many and varied stories together in a web of place, time, and meaning. Each successive story gains in momentum and weight by following those that came before. O’Connor but was a devout catholic where she attended mass every morning although she didn’t let that affect her craft. O’Connor presented the themes of good and evil sharing similarities with the theme of religion and Grace. Throughout the book, O’Connor made many references to heaven or hell and how each of the characters symbolized good or evil. O'Connor was a Southern Gothic writer whose preoccupations with violence, death, and Catholic themes were evident in her writing. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" emphasizes the difficulty of finding grace in ordinary life. Throughout the span of both books both authors have portrayed how diction played a vital role in the development of their themes. Whether its Joyce describing how many of his characters were affected by the proximities of life or O’Connor illustrating how her diction dictated her grotesque style of writing, both authors showed a great deal of evidence on how they shared similarities and differences in both books.

Works Cited

Betances 5 McHugh, Robert T. Style, Structure, and Theme in James Joyce's “Dubliners”, Southern Connecticut State University, Ann Arbor, 1970. ProQuest, http://ezproxy2.library.drexel.edu/login?url=https://search-proquestcom.ezproxy2.library.drexel.edu/docview/302468854?accountid=10559. Shmoop Editorial Team. "Dubliners Themes." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 9 Jun. 2018. Spinks, Lee. James Joyce: a Critical Guide. Edinburgh University Press, 2009. Dubliners. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/d/dubliners/critical-essays/themes-in-dubliners Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). A Good Man is Hard to Find. Retrieved from https://www.shmoop.com/good-man-hard-to-find/ O'Connor's Short Stories. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/o/oconnors-short-stories/summary-and-analysis/agood-man-is-hard-to-find McDermott, John V. "Flannery O'Connor's validation of the unreasonable in 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find'." Notes on Contemporary Literature, vol. 40, no. 1, 2010. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com.ezproxy2.library.drexel.edu/apps/doc/A231714517/AONE? u=drexel_main&sid=AONE&xid=b295b996. Accessed 9 June 2018....