The South is often referred to as a different world. Along with this world comes a specific genre of literature. Southern literature is anywork set in the South, about the South, or by a southern author. Flannery O'Conner's work is classified in the sub- genre of southern Renaissance of the early to mid 20th century. According to Anne E. Rowe of Florida State University, these authors "have continued to place characters and action in the South. Although their work is regional, it is universal as well. Each writer, through the exploration of specific characters and places, seeks answers to the questions of life and death that concern all men and women." This movement is a break from previous works surrounding slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, especially the frustrations of each. How does O' Connor's work deviate from the "Lost Cause" movement to fit in with the Renaissance movement?
-Kelly and Shane
O’Connor deviates from the original Lost cause movement after the south lost the war, and focuses on the flaws in the south by entering the Renaissance movement. O’Connor has a universal message of religion throughout her short stories. In “Good Country People” the message focuses on religion through the atheist girl, Hulga, and the Good Christian man selling Bibles. O’Connor points out existentialism when the boy takes the girls into the hayloft. Then changes from the good ole country boy selling Bibles to not believing in God, and being the true atheist out of the two because Hulga expects him to uphold values she does not even believe. Without God present, the boy takes advantage of the girl, and leaves her stranded religiously, and physically without her wooden leg. “You’re a Christian!’ she hissed. ‘You’re a fine Christian! You’re just like them all”. Religiously expecting values to be upheld, O’Connor brings across the universal message that we are all dependent on religion, or God in some form or another. Existentialism is also a universal message, from the fact that pandemonium would occur without a higher being to please. Deviating from a retched loss of the war, to focusing on moral values O'Connor presents the Renaissance movement.
ReplyDeleteClayton Poffenberger
As stated in the prompt, the “Lost Cause” movement was a period of literature during the post Civil War period, during which Southern writers sympathized with Southern issues with Reconstruction. Flannery O’Connor, a Southern writer during this time period, is actually considered part of the Southern Renaissance, which was known as a break from the “Lost Cause” movement. O’Connor deviates from this movement as instead of sympathizing with the South, she is actually quite critical of pre-Civil War life. This is amply demonstrated in her short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” The protagonist of the story is a grandmother of a normal southern family. The grandmother is nostalgic about the “Old South” as it was what she was raised with. O’Connor is extremely critical and negative towards her jealous and childish ways the entire story. O’Connor criticizes the racist ways of the South, as illustrated by the grandmother’s statement regarding an African-American child: “‘Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!’” (2). In addition, O’Connor looks down upon the opinion of many southerners that they were classy people just because of their wealth. In the story, the grandmother sees herself as a “lady” (2) simply because she was wealthy, when in actuality she is not a polite or courteous person. These criticisms of the selfish grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” directly relate to O’Connor’s opinions of the Old South. As O’Connor criticizes instead of sympathizing with the plights of the South, she breaks from the “Lost Cause” movement and brings about a new ideal of Southern Literature through the Southern Renaissance.
ReplyDeleteThe Southern Renaissance began with southern writers pointing out the racism that took place in the Antebellum and "Lost Cause" periods. In more than once of her stories, Flannery O'Connor makes a statement on the importance of diversity. In "Good Country People," Mrs. Hopewell says, "...it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round" (6), which is also seen in "Revelation" when the "pleasant lady," also says, "...it takes all kinds to make the world go round" (6) The South was also seen as a land lacking the intellectualism of the North and Europe. O'Connor addresses this feeling with the protagonist in "Good Country People," Hulga. Hulga has a Ph.D. in philosophy and thus looks down on everyone around her. However, O'Connor compares this behavior to that of being complacent because of wealth, since Hulga does nothing with her education and is just proud of the title, making it meaningless. When the "Bible salesman" cons her into giving him her leg, she realizes that she wasn't as smart as she thought. This is consistent with how everyone in the stories who have been proud over something materialistic, like the grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to Find," Hulga, and Mrs. Turpin in "Revelation," have been shown up by people they deem to be "lesser."
ReplyDeleteO'Connor is clearly a southern writer, but she shares no sympathy with the Old South customs and isn't disheartened by the loss of the Civil War. In her stories, the character's all possess fatal flaws that lead to their death or redemption. In most of these characters, racism is one of such flaws, portrayed in an evil light by O'Connor, proving her separation from traditional Old South mentality. Her stories also share one similar theme that completely disproves any connection to the "Lost Cause" period and places her firmly in the "Renaissance" period. This theme is of redemption and revelation. In each story, the main character, as flawed and evil as they may be, has a revelation and a moment of grace where they realize all of the wrongs they have done, and are given a chance to redeem themselves. This one last shot at inner peace is what separates her works from similar works of her time period.
ReplyDeleteO'Connor does not sympathize with the ways of the Old South, however, she criticizes them more than anything. Although O'Connor grew up during the pre-Civil War era, she was not like most of the writers during this time period because others did sympathize with the Old South customs, which was stated in the prompt as the "Lost Cause" movement. In Flannery O'Connor's story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find", the protagonist of the story is the grandmother. The grandmother is a great example of the Old South customs because she shows racism, childish behaviour, and her beliefs. In the story the grandmother believes she is a "lady" and when she meets the Misfit she states, "Listen, I know you're a good man. You don't look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people!" (6). She's stating that in the South, a good man could only be raised by "good people". The grandmother proves she is no more of a lady than he is a gentleman. O'Connor uses the grandmother's childish and arrogant ways to criticize the customs of the Old South. In all of O'Connor's stories, however she separates herself from the "Lost Cause" movement and enters the "Renaissance" era by showing in the end all of her characters find their moment of grace.
ReplyDeleteThe "Lost Cause" movement was the feelings of a previous generation. It had become stagnant, only so much could be said about something like slavery and the civil war. O'Connor's stories may take place in the south, but their theme is universal. Her stories aren't nostalgic for the "good ol' days", and instead criticize the people who look back to the past or think that they are better just because the color of their skin. In fact, all who condemn people by their looks in her stories are proven wrong. In "Good Country People" Hulga think the bible salesman is just that, good country people, and thinks she will be the one seducing him and in control, but she realizes her mistake too late when she sees he is not good. In "Revelation" Mrs. Turpin arranges everyone in a hierarchy with white trash being the lowest and in the waiting room she only wants to talk to the stylish lady because she looks nice, but when she sees her vision she realizes that such earthly standings have no meaning. O'Connor doesn't ignore the then current issues, but she moves past them to look at the bigger picture and human nature.
ReplyDelete"Lost Cause" writers sympathized with Southerners during the Civil War era. However, O'Connor seems to do quite the opposite. She seems to disapprove of the Southerners. O'Connor is more of a Renaissance writer. She does not dwell on the past. Her characters are usually villain-like and were given moments of grace. In her stories titles are thrown around to those that do not really represent them well. Natalie pointed out that, "Hulga does nothing with her education and is just proud of the title." Not only does Hulga not use her Ph.D to her advantage, she lacks common sense and is conned by her foolishness. Also in this story Hulga is fooled by a man who is supposed to be a holy person, but is actually a sinner. All of O'Connor's characters although they make crucial mistakes in their lives, are given a moment of grace and move forward.
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ReplyDeleteFlannery O’Conner’s main ingredient in setting her apart from the other “Lost Cause” writers of the South was her ignorance. Her ignorance was not a chosen one, but one of happenstance. She did not see herself as a racist, but shared some racist views in her subconscious. The Lost Cause era of writings was of those who were bitter of the Confederate loss and blamed it on numerous factors that were later called tenets. O’Connor's liturature is not about the war, reconstruction, slavery or the union; she focuses on the gritty and bare human nature. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” and “Revelations” O’Conner takes the road less traveled and forms her characters to wear their inner instincts on their face, and leave all thought or hesitation out of the story. Her intense description of seemingly heartless folk who are accosted by fear and hate, like Mrs. Turpin, turn her work from just Southern writing, to a look into the average southern white mind. By letting her readers into the twisted mind of a bigot, O’Conner shifts from an author to something more of an examiner or psychologist. The most important thing of this is that she is using what she knows, was bred to know, and herself as tools to write the in depth analysis of the Southern mentality at the time while the Lost Cause of the Confederacy tried to blame the north, slaves, traitors, and unfair wins for the poor state the South was in, years after the Civil War.
ReplyDeleteO'Connor deviates from the "Lost Cause" movement because she doesn’t sympathize with the post-Civil War era south, but rather criticizes their actions and attitude. Her works correlate more closely with the Southern Renaissance works emerging at the time. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “Good Country People,” and “Revelation,” there are common themes that focus on religion, racism, and a ‘moment of grace’ that can all relate to life both within, and outside of the world of the south. Her protagonists all contain flaws that are exploited by others in the story, and also contain some sort of dark themes. Most important to the Renaissance movement is the ‘moment of grace’ that each character goes through. Not all of them redeem themselves, but they are all fronted with the opportunity to do so. This idea of a ‘second chance’ is closely tied to the Southern Renaissance movement and tends to be absent in the “Lost Cause” southern literature.
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ReplyDeleteO'Connor's form of southern literature is very progressive, as is demonstrated by A Good Man Is Hard to Find and many of her other short story selections. A repetitive, but true, evaluation of her style of writing is that she breaks with the Southern tradition of nostalgic, bitter tone, refusing to defend the hypocritical, racist views of her Southern compatriots. As Kevin J. mentioned, the sprinkling of racism and Confederate "nationalism" in her novels is by design. It is NOT a deep-seeded theme in her novels that penetrates into the core of her believes, but rather, an element of distortion. As the biography of O'Connor in The Bedford Introduction to Literature suggests, "O'Connor sought to expose the 'distortions' of 'modern life' that appear 'normal' to her audience" (442). In this sense, she is calling Southerners (a still very racist Jim Crow South at the time she was writing these stories) to evaluate their morality and examine the true fibers of their spirituality. She challenges that the appearance of the individual has no bearing on one's true character or integrity. This is the Renaissance element of her writing coming into play.
ReplyDeleteWhen I wrote this prompt, I was thinking more along the lines of regionalism, and not only the themes that come along with this habitat, but the universality of these themes. I think the people who got closest to this idea were Clayton, Natalie, Rachel, Grant, and Brennan. However, taking the prompt in a different direction doesn't make it wrong. I hadn't originally considered criticism of the past to be an applicable theme, but I now believe it is. However, the universal message would have to be explained, such as those who can't move forward are doomed.
ReplyDeleteKelly is correct! Sometimes a BLOG will go in an unexpected direction but will still yield some important messages born from close textual analysis. This is the beauty of studying literature!!
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