Sunday, October 23, 2011

Flannery O'Conner

oh. my. god.

6 comments:

  1. okay so because this is a writing intensive course I suppose I should elaborate a little :D That was my initial reaction and I needed a little time to digest this whole story.

    Quick summary? There's a family that consists of two children and an infant, a mother, father and grandmother. The children are brats, the parents don't know how to discipline and the grandmother controls them all. They set out on a trip to Florida, though the grandmother wanted to go to Tennessee. They stop along the way at a gas station/BBQ restaurant. There the children are of course brats and the grandmother is ashamed of how they act. They continue on their journey and the grandmother wants to stop at a house she remembers from her younger years. The father refused, so the grandmother told the children of a secret passageway so they harassed their father until he agreed to go. They turned down a dirt road, when all of the sudden the grandmother remembered that the house she was thinking of was in another state the cat jumped on the father who swerved and rolled the car. The family got out of the car, though the daughter was sad no one was dead. Three men came down the road. The head man instructed the other two to take the boys to the woods where they shot and killed them. Then the women, besides the grandmother, were taken and shot(including the infant). The grandmother all the while says the head bad guy is a good man and comes from uncommon blood therefore he wouldn't shoot a lady. When the grandmother had an epiphany she reached out to the man and touched him, upon this the man stepped back and shot her three times in the chest.

    The End.

    Crazy crazy men.
    So who is to blame? Many would point to the grandmother and say if it weren't for her they would all still be alive. I beg to differ. I think her son, Bailey, is to blame here. If he would learn to discipline his children and stand up to his mother then the cat wouldn't be on the trip, the kids wouldn't have harassed him and the mother would never had said anything anything about the house she wanted to go to. Bailey in turn started killing his family from the time he got married, maybe before.

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  2. Hahahahahaha I saw your post and was like woah, is that all your gonna write?! But you did a really good summary on the story itself. I also agree with your on it being the son's fault. Number one, he should learn how to control his kids..since when do parents let their children run over them, be the parent! Number two, he shouldn't have let his mother tell him what to do either. Yes she's your mom, but enough is enough. Bailey should have most definitely put his foot down and took control of the situation and maybe they wouldn't have all died.

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  3. Ha!

    So...how does this fit in with our discussion of America/Americans? Does it end with "family values," or is it something bigger?

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  4. Well It could have been any of the parents that could have put there foot down. Their have been cases where the mom is the head of the household or that they both share equal power. But you could also say that the grandmother should have raised her son differently. Even if Baily ordered his mother to leave the cat at home, would she have followed his orders?

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  5. Phillip--as for saying it could be any of the adults in this particular story I disagree. If you remember we talked about how these children are the "baby boomers." This is when the nuclear family really came to the forefront and the roles of the man of the house became so prevalent. The woman's job was to take care of the house and family, in this time it really is his job. Also, saying the grandmother should have raised his son differently I also disagree. At this point he is respecting his elders. I don't think that she realizes that she's impending on his family. Also, having a grandmother around during this time period is very unusual so her being the elder and mother of the father of the nuclear family, it isn't about how she raised her son it's how he's running his own family.

    Ms. Freeman--I had made a different comment earlier about religion and catholicism and the Misfit but the very rude internet didn't post it. I'm using the catholic faith because the author is catholic. I think that maybe this was a judgement day situation. It's your time to die, are you going to heaven, hell or purgatory? Although the grandmother calls herself a Christian her whole life she has the moment of her mind clearing. So now that she's had her clarifying moment before she dies will she go to heaven? According to the catholics, she will. So what happened to her family? At this we don't really have enough information to know what will happen to them according to the catholics.

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