I'm going to tell you the basic gist of the story so if you want to read it yourself you could stop reading now, but I if I were you I wouldn't bother reading it.
Basically, this family is going on vacation and they take their cantankerous old grandma (shown in all of her pride on the left) with them. She is a bitty old lady that complains about everything. Before she leaves the house she gets dressed all nice and fancy so that if anyone finds her on the side of the road dead they will know she is a lady (hmmm). They stop at a restaurant on their way home and while they are their they talk to a guy about how the "Misfit" broke out of jail and is highly dangerous.
Well the grandma being the ray of sunshine that she is, insists that they go off into the middle of nowhere to see this plantation she remembered from her past. Well turns out, just kidding kids, that plantation is in a different state, and oh before I forget I brought my cat along in my bag without telling anyone and then accidentally kicked it so that the person driving would crash the car...oops. (raise your hand if you know anyone like this. I was so frustrated with the lady by the time I got to this point that I almost couldn't finish the story. O'Connor really know how to make you hate someone).
Well the mom breaks her shoulder and as they are assessing the damage the Misfit and his gang shows up and makes them all get out of the car and come with him into the woods...
I bet you can guess where the story goes from there. (If not feel free to ask cause I'm not going into detail).
I will just say this, the story is supposed to be a catholic perspective on the Grace of God. In the end supposedly the grandma obtains grace because she tells the misfit he is one of her children just before he shoots her dead and makes the comment that she would have made a good christian if there had been someone to shoot her every minute of her life.
I get the message trying to be sent by this story, I just don't like the story itself. I did think it was interesting how O'Connell set up a comparison between the murderer and the bitty old grandma and then showed the stark difference between the two, but I think she missed the mark a bit by focusing more on cheap grace than true repentance.
I will not argue that grace is important and that without it this life is useless, but I will argue that the context in which she is arguing grace doesn't really fit.
5 comments:
Hey! I've been meaning to read something by Flannery O'Connor for a long time. Conan O'Brien did his thesis on her!
I remember my high school English teacher telling me about "A Good Man is Hard to Find". She was very enthusiastic about it, but she was also crazy.
Flannery O'Connor is a great author her writing technique is very solid and there is a reason she is considered a classic. I just think alot of her stories are twisted and creepy.
This sounds like a good read. Old, cranky people who ruin everyone's lives around them are always entertaining. That's something all of us can strive to be when we get up there in years.
That's what I like about you Luke. You're always making goals and dreaming big.
I kind of want to be a crazy, eccentric grandma, who knits covers for EVERYTHING. The toilet seat, the piano, the mayonnaise jar, all will have knitted covers. And I will tell my grandkids stories about meeting Teddy Roosevelt and Clark Gable and then get arrested for indecent exposure or arson (or a wacky combination of the two).
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