Comparison of Protagonists in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Greenleaf” Essay

A comparison of protagonists in Flannery OConners A Good Man Is Hard To Find and GreenleafIn both(prenominal)(prenominal) his works of fiction, A Good Man Is Hard To Find and Greenleaf, Flannery OConner paints a rather grim picture. The protagonists in both the short stories share several(prenominal) common traits. In the story, A Good Man Is Hard To Find, the Grandmother, who remains unnamed throughout, is a vile woman, who is also selfish and a bed hypocrite. Yet, she observes to judge other people for what she perceives to be their shortcomings. She is a woman who has seen hardships, and just the fact that she got through them, makes her feel morally superior to others. She feels she is a lady which makes her conk out than the easement. She lacks the will and the ability to introspect and spends her time passing judgement on others.Her hypocrisy is highlighted in the fact that she spends most of her time passing judgement on others even though she claims her conscious to be her guiding force. A glaring example of her selfishness is when she is afraid for her avouch life, but claims that her conscience would non allow her to select her family in the same direction as that thr feature by the criminal referred to as the Misfit. She passes judgement on her daughter-in-law for not taking her children to a place that she in person thinks would be beneficial for them. To further add insult to injury, she compares her daughter-in-laws face to a cabbage.The Grandmother has an opinion on everything and feels that her style of doing things is the however way to do them. She chastises another character from the story, John Wesley, for what she thinks is inappropriate amount of respect for his home state. At any opportunity, she makes it her business to judge other people and remark at the lack of their good enoughness, without evidently having any of her own. She gives little attention to her own look, convinced that being a lady is the only virtue, and sh e, by dressing as superstar is the only lady and therefore is the only one who harbors any virtues at all.This lack of self awareness, and a tendency to dissociate herself from everything happening around her, to take a morally condescending stance, is a recurrent theme of her character. Though she is critical of everyone andeverything that other people do, she continues to turn a blind eye to her own failings and shortcomings, believing herself to be in a higher place any character or personality flaws. She continuously talks about her conscience, citing it when it can get her her own way, while exclusively ignoring it when it comes in the way of what she wants. She sneaks Pitty Sing into the car and continues to lie to the children. If she made a mistake, she chooses not to reveal her and blame others for it. Even at the end of the story, when the family encounters the Misfit, and he consistently murders everyone including the children that the Grandmother harps on initially, she never for once begs him to spare their lives. Instead, when the criminal finally turns his weapon towards her, she begs him and entreats him to spare her, citing the fact that she was a lady and therefore above the rest of the family that had been so mercilessly murdered in front of her.Despite her overactive conscience, which had just witnessed the murder of her family, she entreats the Misfit to join her human beings telling him that she believed him to be a good man. Despite the heartlessness that the Misfit had just displayed, the Grandmother is sure of her moral code and that it would mean or sothing to him. In fact, she even extends it to him, trying to make him see that he was a good man, albeit a misunders tood one. Unfortunately for her, though he does agree with her, he does not see this as a reason to let her go. throughout this traumatic event, the Grandmother continues to be the conceited person that she started out to be in the story. It is only in her final out comes, when she is just a blink apart from death, does she realize her folly and admits that she is flawed the like everyone else that she had criticized all her life. She finally sees the error of her ways and learns the truth about herself, only it is too late for her realization to be any good to her. As her last dying words, she admits to the Misfit that he was like one of her own children, finally showing the ability to feel compassion. Her last moment alive is also her moment of truth, one where she realizes who she is and understands others. This crucial moment of her life is immediately followed by her tragic death.In Greenleaf, the author directs a similar protagonist. The protagonist, an older lady in this one too, is Mrs. May the proprietor of a farm. She is a conceited woman who believes that her farm is profitable and sustainingonly because of her efforts, discarding the efforts put in by the rest of the family and the farm help. Her rise from penury to the mastery of her farm makes her oblivious to the fact that she had help. Instead, she sees this as an opportunity to put on airs and tell the world of her prowess in business. She brags about herself being penniless and inexperienced when she first came about the rundown farm, and takes great pride in the fact that the farm is straight successful. She not only forgets the contribution of the farm help, but blames them of being against her. She even goes on to the extent of blaming the elements of being against her. So engrossed is she in her own success that she forgets that it is only the elements of nature that allow the farm to be successful.She also forget the help of Mr. Greenleaf, who stood by her and toiled with her to make her farm successful and profitable. It was only after Mr. Greenleaf had answered her ad for help that she had been able to set up a dairy for herself. Though the story does not rally on the particular contributions of Mr. Greenleaf, it does suggest that the farm w as only established upon his arrival and therefore it can be inferred that he was instrumental in its success. She, with her half baked knowledge in farming, and her lack of experience, is surely not a good farm keeper or a farm manager. It is only the experience and the wisdom of Mr. Greenleaf that continues to make her farm successful and profitable. Her good issue has been because of the arrival of a farmhand who is not only knowledgable, but also hard working. This is something that she ignores through the course of the story. She places a lot of value on her own perceived virtues, in this case her efforts to pull the farm together. On the other hand, she complains about Mr. Greenleaf to everyone who would turn an ear to her. Most of her blessings are undeserved, but she fails to recognize it and is certainly not graceful in her rejection of Mr. Greenleafs contributions.As the story continues to build, Mrs. Mays resentment towards Mr. Greenleaf increases. She is ultimately bro ught down and killed by a diddly-shit, who she wants to control. While Mr. Greenleaf views the bull as an unstoppable force of nature, Mrs. May sees it as an intruder on her property and something that she should be able to control, because of her position and her perceived abilities. In refusing to succumb to the forces beyond hercontrol, she invites her own end. The bull finally attacks her and she is impaled by its horn.A similar character theme to that of the Grandmother, Mrs. May cannot see the grace present in those that she believes to be socially her inferiors. Like the Grandmother, it is Mrs. Mays blind pride, and her inability to turn her eye inwards, that leads to the conflict amongst herself and those around her in this case Mr. Greenleaf. She thought too extremely of herself, and was pretentiously self righteous. As in most of her works, OConner gives her protagonists the characteristics of self righteousness, blind pride, tactlessness and conceit. Both the Grandmot her and Mrs. May believe themselves to be ladies, and therefore above reproach. They both feel that if they feel, dress and behave the part, they can be ladies, who are in fact revered people of the society. They attach too much importance to their own selves and to their perceived social standing. Though they do not choose to act like ladies, they still believe themselves to be it. They both feel that if they continue to behave like respectable people of the society, they would be appropriate rewarded with good graces. Both of them have little patience or compassion.Another similarity between the cardinal characters is that though both of them continue to be conceited and hypocrites, they do understand their own follies during their dying moments. In the story Greenleaf Mrs. May is impaled by a bulls horn and as she is lying there, dying of her grievous injuries, she chooses to confess something to the bull. Her dying words are spoken in the bulls ears. What these words were, we will never know because the narrator does not choose to do so. One can only imagine that when she does face the moment of truth, Mrs. May, like the Grandmother, chooses to finally acknowledge the error of her ways.Another unfortunate similarity between the two protagonists is that none of them were able to admit their folly to the people they had wronged. While in A Good Man Is Hard To Find, the Grandmother realizes her mistake only after the remainder of her family has been murdered, Mrs. May dies alone without having the chance to apologize for her behavior and her errors totheir primary recepient, Mr. Greenleaf. In both the cases, self realization came too late, only when the women were moments away from death. The realization of their errors is quickly followed by their deaths in both the stories, giving them no opportunity to correct themselves or make amends to the people they had wronged by their actions.Though it is not apparent in OConners style of narration, it seems that the protagonists of both the stories were undeserving of the attention, affection and blessings that they received in their life. Why the two choose to be the way they are or act the way they do, remains a mystery. Both of them are elderly women, but their youth is not discussed in the story, so one can only assume that the two had seen tough times which hardened them emotionally. Their insistence on being morally superior by virtue of being ladies may have something to do with some experiences in their youth or their earlier life, of which there is no mention in either of the stories. At the end of each of the story, the principal characters, who remain smug and conceited throughout the narration, are shocked out of their self righteousness into humaneness. Unfortunately, the realization of their total inadequacy in the eyes of the supreme being, or God, comes too late in their dying moments.