Essay on "Morality and Disappointment: Two Themes"

Essay 4 pages (1405 words) Sources: 1 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Morality and Disappointment: Two Themes in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Araby"

In both Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard To Find," and James Joyce's "Araby," the authors present stories that end with an unexpected sadness. O'Connor's story presents the reader with a typical family on the way to Florida for a vacation. They gripe at each other, annoy each other, and generally try to put up with each other through the day before their trip and the car ride on the way there. Throughout the story, it is the grandmother's voice that the reader hears most often. She tries to make herself sound better or wiser than the rest of the family, although to both the readers and her family she is annoying. Although the reader begins to see O'Connor's family as suffering from some serious psychological issues toward the end of the story, he or she is not prepared for what happens at the end of the story. The family meets the notorious killer, The Misfit, and is killed. Still, one of the last images that the reader sees before the story ends is the grandmother begging and pleading in the outspoken manner she is known for.

Joyce's "Araby," on the other hand, focuses more on one boy than an entire family. In this story, a boy entering adolescence desperately wants to be noticed by the first girl that he has become infatuated with. He thinks about her all of the time, and when she asks him if he is going to a bazaar, he is drawn there both because she describes it as something that will be enjoyable and because her association with it makes him want to attend. He promises to buy her something at the bazaar. But when he gets to the market, after waiting all day and being disappointed by his uncle, who is about as annoying to the reader as the grandmother in O'Connor's story, he ends up feeling "as a creature driven and derided by vanity" (Joyce 289). Thus, both Joyce and O'Connor's stories share similarities and differences in a number of areas. By focusing on morality and disappointment in the two stories, those similarities and differences can be explored to a greater extent.

Morality is a theme that is carried through both Joyce's and O'Connor's stories. In fact, both stories mention some type of Christian beliefs as a commonly accepted type of morality. In "A Good Man is Hard To Find," the grandmother urges The Misfit to pray over and over again at the end of the story. She insists that he is a good person and that "Jesus would help [him]" if The Misfit would just pray (193). In addition, the young boy in the story is named John Wesley, the name of a famous protestant minister. In "Araby," however, it is the Catholic religion that is emphasized. Joyce writes that Richmond Street "was a quite street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free (Joyce 285). Other issues of Catholicism, such as Mangan's sister's convent and a priest, are also mentioned. Although the fact that the two stories mention different types of Christian faiths, this is more a similarity than a difference. Both stories do suggest that morality is, somehow, drawn from religion, Christian religion. Further, since O'Connor wrote from a Southern perspective and Joyce form a European perspective, both are integrating their cultures into their writing.

Differences in the treatment of morality in the novels, however, can also be found. In "A Good Man is Hard To Find," the grandmother is the character who can best be associated with the theme of morality. She is constantly referring to morality as the way that people used to act. In fact, she chastises the children for their behavior because they are not acting the way that children did when she was growing up. When the family stops at Red Sam's, she and Sam discuss the fact that "everything is getting terrible," talking about The Misfit. Further, O'Connor states that before the family leaves the restaurant, the grandmother and Red Sam talk about "better times," meaning older times (187). Clearly, for the… READ MORE

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