Flannery OConnors Challenged Characters - Research Paper Example

Flannery O’Connor’s Challenged Characters Flannery O’Connor is one of America’s favorite writers thanks to her deep insightfulness and strength in writing unconventional stories with a touch of the gothic strange in them. Examples of this unique writing style can be found in the short stories “Good Country People” and “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” These two stories remain very similar in overall plot and character structure which may seem to limit what O’Connor has to say about the world around her. In both stories, the reader is introduced to a small rural household with one older but still single and somehow defective daughter. This daughter, and subsequently the rest of her family, is eventually taken advantage of by a drifter of some kind that enters the family’s world for a brief period. Despite this similarity, particularly in the characters of Hulga Hopewell and Lucynell Crater (the younger), the two somehow defective and unmarried daughters, O’Connor manages to convey widely different messages. By comparing the two daughters within these stories and their unique experiences, as they measure up against known trademarks of O’Connor’s writing style, it is possible to find O’Connor’s general worldview regarding the nature of evil in the world but also her hope that there might still be some good left in it as well. It is in contrasting these characters that one begins to understand O’Connor’s ideas of the loss of innocence and what makes a person defective. In “Good Country People,” a small household of women gets a visit from a young door-to-door Bible salesman. One of these women is Hulga Hopewell, who is 32 years old and feels herself ugly beyond belief. Although she has earned a Ph.D. in philosophy, she must wear a false leg because her natural leg had been shot off in an accident when she was a child. She finds no inner value in her ability to think and can only judge herself by her outward appearance, purposely suiting her inner character in every way she can devise to match with this outer perception. While her mother invites the salesman in and considers him ‘good country people’ like she is, meaning they share many of the same morals, values and ethics, Hulga does not believe in anything so prosaic. As a means of acting out against this ideal of the ‘good country people’, Hulga determines to seduce this young man as soon as he shows the slightest interest in her. She reasons if she can seduce something as good, pure and sweet as the man her mother chooses to see, the epitome of the ‘good country people’ Hulga has been compared with all her life, then she would have proof that her mother’s way of seeing things was somehow wrong and thus justify her anger. However, once she finally gets her young man alone in the hayloft of a remote barn, the salesman uses his seductive skills to tricks Hulga into relinquishing her artificial leg as a form of foreplay. In a cruel move, he runs off with both her glasses and her false leg, proving that Hulga is much more innocent still than she had imagined. At the same time, it is noted that the salesman did not steal anything from Hulga’s mother, opening up an entirely new discussion as to whether Hulga’s jaded attitude toward life despite her lack of knowledge about it was the catalyst for her own treatment. In other words, had Hulga been more like her mother, would she have escaped her association with the Bible salesman intact? These questions are answered as a similar story takes place in “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” In this story, Lucynell Crater lives with her daughter of the same name in a remote farmstead located just outside of a small town. The younger Lucynell is described as angelic in appearance, but is apparently mentally handicapped in some form. This idea is conveyed in the details of her life, such as the fact that she is older than 30, but behaves in a very shy, quiet, childlike manner. Although the younger Lucynell Crater, as childlike, quiet and simple as she is, remains significantly different from the highly educated Hulga of “Good Country People”, both characters are immediately introduced as handicapped in some fashion that makes it either impossible or very difficult for them to exist outside of the protected worlds their mothers have created for them. As in “Good Country People”, the Crater women are visited by a traveler, this one without a profession of any sort, who convinces the older woman to allow him to work in exchange for food and board. There are numerous things that need to be repaired around the farm including a shiny family car, the one treasure, outside of the younger Lucynell herself, that the family can still claim. As he works around the farm, he maintains a soft ‘good country folk’ attitude toward the mother, speaks kindly and patiently with the daughter and generally makes himself pleasant and helpful. Eventually, he convinces the older woman to allow him to marry the younger girl, who, like Hulga, has few other prospects. However, again like Hulga, the traveler ends up leaving the daughter in dire straights while taking with him the treasured family possessions. As can be seen in even this cursory look at the two stories, the two main characters in each of these stories, Hulga Hopewell and Lucynell Crater, are quite similar in very profound ways. Although both girls are each well into their thirties in physical age, O’Connor presents them both as having very little in the way of worldly experience. While Hulga has a Ph.D., she continues living with her mother and isolates herself from the rest of society. Her education has not taught her how to live in the world and thus she remains as locked into the role of daughter as Lucynell. Lucynell’s isolation is not so much her own doing as she, while also past thirty years old, demonstrates the mental capacities of a much younger girl-child. In describing her age, her mother passes her off as fifteen or sixteen, “The girl was nearly thirty, but because of her innocence it was impossible to guess” (O’Connor, 1990, p.151). Both women lose their identities as a result of their interactions with strangers and their innocence in knowing how to deal with such individuals, an innocence caused primarily as a result of the isolation their handicap has brought upon them. When Hulga relinquishes her leg to the Bible salesman, she “felt entirely dependent on him. Her brain seemed to have stopped thinking altogether and to be about some other function that it was not very good at” (O’Connor, 1990, p. 289). In taking her leg, the Bible salesman steals Hulga’s very identity, the one thing with which she has associated herself with completely. “She has been robbed of her entire self: her intellectuality, her body, and her soul” (Martin, 1969, p. 77). This same sort of thing happens with Lucynell in “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” Although she is consistently portrayed as being incapable of independent thought, Lucynell loses her identity when Tom Shiftlet leaves her sleeping in a diner. He absolves himself of any responsibility for his new wife by explaining she’s a hitchhiker he picked up along the road. On the strength of this fictional relationship, he is able to claim ignorance regarding whom she is or where she came from when the curious busboy begins asking questions. Finally, both women are abandoned in situations from which they are incapable of saving themselves. Hulga is left helpless and blind, unable to walk without the leg she’s depended on so thoroughly she cannot define herself without. Lucynell is left utterly helpless without even a voice to speak for her and help her at least get back home to her mother. Yet O’Connor does not leave either character completely without hope. While Hulga has a chance of achieving grace by recognizing and acknowledging her arrogance and resolve her anger, Lucynell is provided with a possible protector as the boy at the Hot Spot describes her as “an angel of Gawd” and “very carefully touched his finger to a strand of the golden hair” (O’Connor, 1990, p. 155). Despite the many similarities in plot structure and characters, there are also many differences between the two characters of Hulga Hopewell and Lucynell Crater. While Hulga is grotesque because of her missing leg and what this has done to her inner personality, Lucynell is simply a character of innocence. Both of these character types represent a trademark character for O’Connor, who consistently used these types of characters to represent broadly based ideas. “Deformed characters are relatively few, and their general meaning fairly consistent: their conditions reflect spiritual incompleteness or lameness … each is in some way a moral derelict” yet “Feeblemindedness is most often associated with innocence, as … Lucynell Crater in ‘The Life You Save May Be Your Own’ indicate” (Martin, 2001, pp.88-89). Hulga is led into her ruination at the hands of Manley Pointer, thinking she is instead leading him into temptation. “During the night, she imagined that she seduced him. She imagined that the two of them walked on the place until they came to the storage barn beyond the two back fields and there … she had to reckon with his remorse” (O’Connor, 1990, p. 284). Lucynell, on the other hand, is simply a victim of those who would take advantage of her. “Lucynell was dressed up in a white dress that her mother had uprooted from a trunk and there was a Panama hat on her head with a bunch of red wooden cherries on the brim. Every now and then her placid expression was changed by a sly isolated little thought like a shoot of green in the desert” (O’Connor, 1990, p. 153). Although only Hulga seems permanently damaged by the Bible salesman while her mother remains relatively untouched by his treachery, several characters are injured through the actions of Tom Shiftlet. More than simply destroying Lucynell Crater the younger, Shiftlet also destroys her mother as he “very patiently sucks the lifeblood (Lucynell) from Mrs. Crater” (Grimshaw, 1981, p. 43). Little is known about what the Bible salesman intends to do once he leaves Hulga with her leg, other than keep the leg as a memento of his exploits along with the collection of all the other artificial body parts he’s collected from other victims. It is assumed he will continue his spree to harm other individuals with the same kind of missing part in their souls that Hulga had experienced and there is a hint that by stealing her leg, the salesman is actually providing Hulga with the impetus she needs to develop her missing part more completely. Tom Shiftlet, however, as has been mentioned, not only destroyed the younger Lucynell by removing her identity completely and abandoning her helpless and alone, but also destroyed her mother by leaving her also helpless and alone. Unlike the Bible salesman, Tom apparently intended to continue hurting others indiscriminately as is shown in his banter with the hitchhiker he picks up on his way out of town after leaving Lucynell. O’Connor continues to provide a sense that good might yet prevail in allowing this hitchhiker to immediately see through Tom’s words and bail out of the car while it’s still moving rather than being his next victim. Although Hulga and Lucynell share many common characteristics and a short summary of the plot of each of their stories, “Good Country People” and “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” the overall message coming out of each story is completely different because of the way in which Flannery O’Connor presented her characters. While both girls are over 30 years old and pass themselves off as younger thanks to a certain degree of innocence, only the innocence of one is genuine. Hulga’s innocence is stolen from her as she is left in the barn minus her glasses and her wooden leg, given an opportunity to achieve grace through the understanding of her own limitations. Lucynell’s innocence remains intact throughout her story, making hers a more tragic tale of loss than that of Hulga. In addition, while both characters are fundamentally flawed, Hulga’s flaw is in her spirit as represented by O’Connor’s trademark symbol, the physical deformity. Lucynell’s flaw is involved with her mind, therefore absolving her of any wrongdoing throughout life, O’Connor’s symbolism for the perpetually innocent within her stories. Both stories represent a victory for evil as the man gets away with the treasure, but each provides a small glimmer of hope for salvation as Hulga begins to understand herself a little better and as the hitchhiker Shiftlet picks up after he abandons Lucynell is apparently able to see right through his witty approaches and instead jumps out of the car without even waiting for it to slow down, indicating sometimes people can escape evil. Works Cited Grimshaw, James A. Jr. The Flannery O’Connor Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981. Martin, Carter W. The True Country: Themes in the Fiction of Flannery O’Connor. Kingsport, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969. Martin, Carter W. “O’Connor’s Use of the Grotesque.” Readings on Flannery O’Connor. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 2001. O’Connor, Flannery. “Good Country People.” The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990, pp. 271-91. O’Connor, Flannery. “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990, pp. 145-56. O’Connor, 1990, Title page O’Connor, “The Life You Save”, 1990, p. 151 O’Connor, “The Life You Save”, 1990, p. 153 O’Connor, “The Life You Save”, 1990, p. 155 O’Connor, “Good Country People”, 1990, p. 284 O’Connor, “Good Country People”, 1990, p. 289 Martin, 1969, Title page Martin, 1969, p. 77 Martin, 2001, Title page Martin, 2001, p. 88 Martin, 2001, p. 89 Grimshaw, 1987, Title page Grimshaw, 1987, p. 43 Read More