In this short story, the author illustrates many elements of Southern Gothicism that led the reader into the gloomy and dark world of the southern United States. There are several horrors, violence, and dismal surroundings that are illustrated in the story. There are also moral messages in the story. Therefore, I will focus on how the author uses stylistic techniques to express his meaning.
The traditional location of the story is well illustrated in that the story takes place in Georgia, and the family is traveling to Florida. The grandmother insisted on stopping in Tennessee. This gives the author a chance to expand on the region set as the hills on the south, blue mountain, fauna of the locale, and flora.
There was an illustration of the element of irony or humor in the story. In the story, there were ironic events that led to deadly tragedy. Otherwise, there was a lot of conflicting and enigmatic dialogue that framed the pathetic begging of the grandmother. The end of the story is the tragic part where the family is murdered in the woods by the Misfit (the most wanted criminal dubbed). The inevitable fate of the family is when they come to cross paths with a mentally ill criminal, and the grave mistake by the grandmother when she remembers the detour she wanted to take was the wrong one, and it was compiled to show how they were prone to death and tragedy. It shows that one decision can destroy everything and life are fickle, it doesn’t often have a good ending.
In the story, there is an element of eccentricity where the June star, misfit, grandmother, and bailing show some traits of stubborn and eccentric behavior. The way in which the owner of the diner also acts means Flannery’s insistence on making her characters stand out by habits and quirks, which the readers will find strange to the point. Thus, it’s a difficult problem that is produced in southern golf, and it’s also the reason why the story mostly excludes the traits of the genre entirely.
References
Gooch, Brad. “Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor.” New York: Little, Brown (2009).
O’Connor, Flannery. “Frederick Asals, ed. A good man is hard to find.” Rutgers University Press (1993).
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