Compare And Contrast Hell-Heaven And A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Aparna of “Hell-Heaven” and the grandmother of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” are two completely different characters. Aparna is young and committed to her role as a mother and wife while the grandmother is older and strives only to fulfill her immediate desires Though they are characters very much unlike each other, they both fulfill their prospective author’s goal to inspire emotion in a reader. Both Aparna of “Hell-Heaven” and the grandmother of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” evoke strong emotions from the reader throughout each of the two stories. Aparna is a traditional Bengali housewife that had been transplanted to the United States. When the story begins, the reader can’t help but to feel sorry for the loneliness that Aparna must be feeling. She is in a country which thrives on a culture that is very different from the one which she is familiar with. Her husband is engulfed by his work and Aparna is left to entertain herself daily. She has few friends in the United States and nothing to occupy her time. Lahiri writes “…I would return from school and find my mother with her purse in her lap and her trench coat on, desperate to escape the apartment where she had spent the day alone.” As the plot continues, the reader is given hope
This immediately causes the reader to be irritated with the grandmother. O’Connor writes “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind.” Bailey was her son which was kind enough to allow her to live with him. He provided for her as he did his wife and children. Rather then being gracious and appreciative, the grandmother manipulates and connives. It can be assumed that O’Connor characterizes the grandmother in this fashion to emotionally connect the reader with the