Literature allows writers to use the various literary tools to deliver their ideas and to enhance the writing process. Writers use literary devices such as imagery, allusion, symbolism, foreshadowing, flashbacks, and so forth. Symbolism is one of the most used devices in literature. For this literature assignment, we identify the use of symbolism in Flannery O' Connor’s short story A Good Man is Hard to Find and in other works.
Flannery O' Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find applies symbolism to bring meaning to the short story. O' Connor’s story is that of a family travelling to Florida who encountered death in the hands of the dangerous Misfit who had skipped prison. The encounter with the Misfit brings a short end to the lives of the members of the family, which prevent them from arriving in Florida ( O'connor, 1955) . Symbolism is extensively used for the characters and events.
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Symbolism in A Good Man is Hard to Find
Names of characters and places in O' Connor’s story are used as symbols. John Wesley is a main character in the story as Bailey's son and a grandson to the main character grandmother. John Wesley is a symbol of a religious person who is against evil, which is evident at the beginning of the story. Wesley says that if he comes face to face with the Misfit, he will smack the Misfit face ( O'connor, 1955; Hendin, 2009) . John Wesley was a religious figure who wrote and preached about grace.
The Misfit is a symbol of an evil person or person who rejects social and moral norms. From the first paragraph, it is evident that the Misfit is an evil person as grandmother reads in the newspaper. The paper reports that the Misfit has escaped from the prison is was headed to Florida, and he had done terrible things to some people ( O'connor, 1955; Hendin, 2009) . The Misfits kills the entire John Wesley’s family. The Misfit is the extreme opposite of Wesley.
O' Connor’s uses the red colour throughout the story. The story depicts to show dangerous and devil images. One of the characters in the movie is Red Sammy. Red Sam is a symbol of the devil in the story. Bobby lee, one of the Misfit's crew member, wears a redshirt. “ One was a fat boy (Bobby Lee) in black trousers and a red sweatshirt…” Misfit’s had red eyes and ankles that symbolizes brutality, evil and impotent character. “… and his (Misfit) ankle s were red and thin ( O'connor, 1955) .” The Misfit was a renown criminal as the grandmother shows reads at from the newspaper at the beginning of the story that Misfit had skipped prison. After reading the newspaper, the grandmother is scared of moving to Florida to avoid meeting with the Misfit and wants to go to the east of Tennessee ( Hendin, 2009) .
After experiencing the accident, the entire family sits outside the car when they see a "Big black battered hearse-like automobile" approaching them. The car belongs to the Misfit, and it is a symbol of death in the story, and the car is an image of a hearse used to carry dead bodies. After alighting from the automobile, grandmother notices a familiar face although she cannot remember who he was. It turns out it is the Misfit who at the end, kills all the family members ( O'connor, 1955) . The car, therefore, is a symbol of a vehicle that will carry the entire family to an afterlife.
As they are travelling in the car, they see a graveyard in a cotton plantation which is a symbol of impending death for the family. The graveyard is at the middle of a cotton plantation with six graves. The grandmother noticed the graveyard saying “...look at the graveyard! ( O'connor, 1955). ” She says that the graveyard belonged to the owners of the plantation.
The author mentions the sunless or cloudless sky severally in the story. The sky depicts emptiness. The Misfit says “Ain’t a cloud in the sky ( O'connor, 1955; Hendin, 2009) .” When describing the prison cell where he was locked up, the Misfit looks up at the cloudless sky. There is no Sunlight, and there are no clouds, and it is during the day. The empty sky depicts the place where the Misfit kills the entire family, which is the middle of nowhere. John Wesley’s family dies in the middle of nowhere because even the grandmother realizes that she does not know the place. It also means that the Misfit is empty, showing that he has no morality. The Misfit is utterly empty in the inside as he lacks any good behavior as he mocks faith and prayers ( O'connor, 1955) . In the end, the Misfit kills all the family members.
The grandmother’s hat is utilized as a symbol aimed at showing her as a noble or respectable woman and her misguided ethical code despite her hypocritical nature. When preparing for the journey, the grandmother dressed in a fancy manner, including a hat that in case of an accident, everyone seeing her body would know that she was a lady. The grandmother is cautious about her dressing code as the author justifies her dressing code by telling the reader that anyone who would have seen her lying dead on the highway would have known that she was a lady ( O'connor, 1955; Hendin, 2009) .
Use of Symbolism in O’Connor’s Other Works
Flannery O’Connor has widely used the symbolism in his work. For example, in the short story, Everything That Rises Must Converge, O’Connor narrates a story of young Julian who want to help her mother overcome prejudice. In the story, O’Connor uses a woman’s hat just like she uses the grandmother’s hat in the main story discussed above. Julian Mother wears a hat, and also the large black lady wears a similar hat it symbolizes the change in the cultural landscape in the South of the U.S in the 1960s. The hat is an indication that all people had an equal social footing.
O’Connor’s short story A Temple of the Holy Ghost tells a story of a hermaphrodite. In the short story, a hermaphrodite is used to depict that God's loves or the Holy Ghost dwell in every one of us no matter what we look like. The grotesque symbol in hermaphrodite is a sign of unity between a male and a female which also shows that the human body is a temple of God and that it is a holy entity ( O’Connor, 1971) .
O’Connor’s use the environmental elements in the short story The River as symbols for different things. O'Connor uses the sky just like in the main short story above in The River sky to represent openness to faith ( O'Connor, 1953) . The author also uses the sun as a symbol of faith.
Conclusion
Flannery O' Connor use od literary tool cannot be emphasized enough. An example is the use of symbolism in most of the short stories that she has written. She extensively uses symbolism in A Good Man Is Hard to Find. For example, the sunless and cloudless sky is a symbol of emptiness of the Misfits soul and also that the place they are standing is nowhere. The names of the characters such as The Misfit is a representation of people who do not fit in the society. O’Connor use of symbolism as a literary device is sufficiently shown in other short stories such as The River, A Temple of the Holy Ghost, and Everything that Rises Must Converge, among others. Examples from these stories supplement the evidence of the use of symbolism in the author's work.
References
Hendin, J. (2009). The World of Flannery O'Connor . Wipf and Stock Publishers.
O’Connor, F. (1971). A temple of the Holy Ghost. The complete stories , 23648 .
O'Connor, F. (1953). The River. The Sewanee Review , 61 (3), 455-475.
O'connor, F. (1955). A Good Man is Hard to Find: And Other Stories . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
