Flanery Oconner Good Country People

In "A Good Man Is Hard To Find", O'Connor introduces the reader to a family
representative of the old and new Southern culture. The grandmother represents the old
South by the way in which she focuses on her appearnace, manners, and gentile ladylike
behavior. O'Connor writes "her collars and cuffs were organdy trimmed with lace and at
her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case
of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a
lady"(O'Connor 118). In this short story, "the wild diproportion of the terms, the vapid
composure that summons up the ultimate violence only to treat it as a rare social
opportuinty, and the cool irony with which O'Connor presents the sentence makes it both
fearful and ludicrous"(Asals 132). The irony that O'Connor uses points out the appalling
characteristics of the grandmother's self-deception that her clothes make her a lady and
turns it into a comic matter. Flannery O'Connor goes to great length to give the reader
insight into the characters by describing their clothes and attitudes. The fact that the
grandmother took so much time in preparing herself for the trip exemplifies the old
Southern tradition of self-presentation and self-pride. The grandmother takes pride in
the way she presents herself because she wants everyone to know that she is a "lady".
Bailey's, the grandson's, family represents that of the new Southern culture that is more
open to change, but they are not totally receptive to change. O'Connor describes the
children's mother in contrast to the grandmother by what they are wearing; thus their
clothes represent the age from which they are. The Children's mother "still had on slacks
and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on navy blue
straw sailor hat with a bunch of white dot in the print"(O'Connor 118). The children's
mother is representative of the New South in which the Southern... [continues]

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