Essays on Good Country People

Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People” mocks modern philosophy and those who follow it by suggesting that those who turn away from God will be taught, in one way or another, that God is real. The story, which takes place in the south, follows...

Is being an intellectual dangerous? If having more knowledge than another person can cause trouble in 2014, then exceptional intelligence certainly brought even more risks to its bearer in Flannery O’Connor’s society. O’Connor, one of the most well-known Southern Gothic authors, often wrote about the...

One of the most prominent and important features of Southern Gothic literature is its incorporation of a character that is a “freak” into the narrative, with this freak being someone who stands out due to a disability that is external, internal, or sometimes both. Southern...

The idea of the grotesque is presented in both Naguib Mahfouz’s novel Midaq Alley and Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People.” Although the settings, plots, and characters differ, both works present an underlying theme of distortion of the moral or religious beliefs of the...

O’Connor uses names that show the person’s character. For example, Hulga used to be named Joy, but now she no longer uses that name, and goes by an uglier name, Hulga. This shows how her life has lost some meaning, and she just goes through...

People like to think they know who they are, their beliefs, what they like, and how they feel about other people. This is even true for characters who share practically nothing in common such as Mrs. Mallard from Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and...