Essay on "Faulkner & F. O'Connor the Fall"

Essay 4 pages (1276 words) Sources: 2 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Faulkner & F. O'Connor

The Fall of the High and Mighty Individual': Individual vs. Society in William Faulkner's a Rose for Emily and Flannery O'Connor's Good Country People

Towards the mid-20th century, society was in a state where structural changes were in the process of coming full circle, wherein a new order finally emerged to dominate all of societies in the world. This was the social state that writers William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor recognized in their literary works, at the time "A Rose for Emily" (1930) and "Good Country People" (1955) were written and published. Both short stories carried the theme of 'the fall of the high and mighty individual,' as represented by the main characters Emily and Joy/Hulga.

The following discussion probes into this theme through a comparative analysis. The author posits that both stories carried with it the fall of the highly moral and intellectual individual as their dominant theme. This theme is supported by three elements of fiction: plot structure, characters, and point-of-view (POV). In this paper, 'the fall' is illustrated in two ways: first, through Emily's fall into moral degeneration as perceived by her community, and second, Joy/Hulga's fall from idealism to disillusionment. Their fall is compared in the behavior of the main characters and their relationship with their societies, and is contrasted by the differences in the stories' plot structures and points-of-view.

The fall' is the result of the friction between the resisting individual and the changing society. In the short stories, Emily and Joy/Hulga were the individuals whose morality and ideals were challenged by the society, which has conformed to the changes that occurred around it in the years that passed since the rise of industrialization. In the case of Emily, her resistance to conform to the changing beliefs and values in her community led to her isolation and being the center of the community's speculations and intrigues. Joy/Hulga, meanwhile, believed herself to be a worldly individual, not believing in the concept of God. However, she encountered her 'fall' in Manley Pointer, whose facade as a devout Christian and Bible salesman made her expose him to her vulnerabilities, only to find out that he is more worldly than her -- that, she, in fact, was not as worldly and unbelieving in morality and religion as she would like to believe herself to be.

These unfortunate realizations and endings in the short stories are supported by the behavior of the main characters, both onto themselves and to their societies. Emily was portrayed as a woman who, because of her lineage and her family's relative influence to the town, considered herself as self-reliant, autonomous, and different to her community. Her community validated this self-perception, through their explicitly expressed animosity towards her. This animosity was shown in the way they 'treated' her throughout the story: a subject of speculation and sometimes, wonder; an individual to be gossiped upon and talked about. The role she played in her community was best summed at the start of the story: "[w]hen Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house..." (par. 1).

Similar to Emily's character, Joy/Hulga behaved antagonistically towards people in general, and more particularly, towards her mother, Mrs. Hopewell. In the story, she acted and believed herself to be a worldly person, who is more in touch with her reality than her mother, who she also believed to be gullible and impressionable, especially towards the 'good country people' -- people like Mrs. Freeman and Manley Pointer. Joy/Hulga is a well-educated woman, and O'Connor characterized her as a woman who is confident, cannot be wrong with her beliefs and values, and can see through other people because, with her… READ MORE

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