Reality vs Perception in Two Short Stories - Essay Example

Such an action, although born out of a sense of sympathy only serves to reinforce the protagonist’s belief that she is somehow not beholden to the rules and norms that the remainder of reality (society) must abide by.

To this end, the old woman behaves in a way that defies norms and conventions; yet, all the while, the reader is uniquely aware that rather than being legitimately insane, there is a cool and calculated cunning that is taking place under the surface. For instance, when the woman appears before the druggist to seek to fill a prescription for arsenic, the druggist implores her as to the nature of the need that she will use such a strong poison (Getty 233). Yet, rather than telling him this, she merely stonewalls and utilizes her old techniques of angrily avoiding the logic presented to her by others. In the same way, although she is fully aware of the fact that Colonel Sartoris is long since passed, she insistently demands that she should not be responsible for any taxes whatsoever due to a supposed agreement she and the mayor had made deep within the past.

Similarly, Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” presents an image of a woman that is quite possibly senile yet still retains many negative attributes that have no doubt been cultivated over a long period of time. As the short story progresses, the reader is made aware that the grandmother clings to a particular (likely falsely constructed) interpretation of the past (Link 127). To this extent, her view of the world and nearly every situation that defines it is a function of her faulty and incomplete perception of reality. Evidence of this can of course be seen in the way in which the grandmother relates borderline racist remarks, laments the change that has come over the South since the loss of the Confederacy, and laments the breakdown of society as she sees it; as evidenced by the conversation she has with the gas station attendant.

However, it is the final actions that take place in the story that only serves to compound the reader's understanding of the complete breakdown that the grandmother experiences with regards to the key differences between actual reality and the false constructs of perception that she has surrounded herself with. Even as the gunman begins taking family members two by two into the forest and murdering them, she still does not allow her perception of the situation to be changed. Even as the gunmen return with the shirt of her son-in-law, she cannot seem to grasp the fact that these men are murderers and will soon thereafter dispose of her in the same manner. Instead, she displays a type of dogged determination to engage with the Misfit and win him over to some form of Christian virtue as she understands it (Walls 16). As this fails, the grandmother becomes the final victim of her own miscategorization of reality.

Interestingly, as the character growth of these protagonists takes place, the reader is made aware of the fact that even though both protagonists remain intractable with respect to their perceptions, O’Connor’s protagonist seemingly grows more and more intractable as the story progresses. Conversely, Faulkner’s character, aside from the premeditated murder that she orchestrated, remained resolute and steadfast in her interpretation of her own reality until the very end. Although the rates of change that these individual protagonists experience take place at differing speeds, they both refuse to embrace or admit their perceptions have led them to an unfruitful demise. These authors use such characters to prove that incorrectly held views are themselves not inherently evil; however, refusing to change such a view even in the face of clear and incontrovertible evidence to the contrary will likely result in ruin for all involved. Read More