Violence as the Road to Transformation: O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
Resource
NTU Studies in Language & Literature Number 13, 59-98
Journal
NTU Studies in Language & Literature Number
Pages
59-98
Date Issued
2004-06
Date
2004-06
Author(s)
DOI
246246/2006121215550463
Abstract
This paper attempts to explicate the function of violence & its relation to the possible epiphany & transformation trajectory in Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” I would first remodel the Greimassian semiotic method to analyze the expressions & functions of violence in the narrative, especially, in the concepts, behaviors & responses of the two main characters—the grandmother & The Misfit. I would argue that, in this story, the function of violence helps build up a discrete trajectory of passion modes & delineate a possible mental transformation of the two main characters. Secondly, the grandmother’s possible transformation process after the car accident & the following violent massacre of the Bailey family will be discussed. Finally, I would take the violent performance in O’Connor’s story as a strategic application, which O’Connor adopts to help reveal the grandmother’s & the Misfit’s concepts constructed loosely upon a layer of culturally set religious & secular beliefs. This culturally embedded reality (which mistakes manners as morals & faith) incurs the very destruction of its groundwork, dilutes the violence resulted from social maladjustment, & furthermore, diminishes the shock behind the downfall of a family.
Subjects
Flannery O’Connor
“A Good Man Is Hard to Find
” A. J. Greimas
semiotics
narrative
transformation trajectory
violence
SDGs
Publisher
臺北市：外文學系
Type
journal article
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