Literature Review: Compare and Contrast

Literature is imaginative writing related to culture that has aesthetic points (Ross, 1996,
p. 406). 

Literature always related to human being. It is because it can show the everyday life that happened in
the surroundings of a writer. 

There are many popular women or men writers in this world. 

They wrote some contravention in their era; Flannery O'connor is one of those writers. She is an
American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. She usually wrote in a sardonic Southern
Gothic style and grotesque characters, often in violent situations. 

She bravely write her Roman Catholic faith to reflect and examines her questions of morality and ethics. Her work won the
1972 U.S National Book Award for Fiction.

This article tries to examine the female lead character on her two selected works; The
"Displaced Person" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find". 

These works selected because there are few same things on them and both of them in the same collection book
entitled "The Complete Story". 

They also have the female character as the main lead of the story.

These two works are very popular in her short story. It shows the same violent situation in their
style. 

O'connor writes these stories with the murder scene in different situations. 

This article wants to compare and contrast the female lead character in both of the stories.

The lead character has similarities with each other. The similarities are two of them have
the same gender (woman), and they also have the same characteristics. 

In the story of "Displaced Person", the female lead character is so selfish. She also feels superior because she is a white
woman. 

It can be looked at the act of Mrs. McIntyre to refuse Mr. Guizac's plan of arranging the
marriage of his cousin with one of Negro man in the farm. This is one of the racist statements
that Mrs. Mclntyre said 

"I cannot understand how a man who calls himself a Christian," she said,
"could bring a poor innocent girl over here and marry her to something like that. I cannot
understand it. I cannot!" (O'connor, 1971, p. 223). 

Mrs. Mclntyre has a narrow mentality towards people in Europe. She thinks that people in Europe are less than human. She doesn't believe
every worker on her farm. 

Mrs. McIntyre has the same characteristics as the grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to Find". 

In the story, the grandmother draws as a woman who racist with calling a poor Black child and reveals how superior she is. Her words when describing a black child is racist 

"...Oh look at die cute little pickaninny!" she said and pointed to a Negro child
standing in die door of a shack. "Wouldn't that make a picture, now?" (O'connor, 1971, p. 119).

The grandmother is a selfish woman too. She wanted to go see her childhood home even though
it was on a difficult road and contrary to its original purpose. In the story Grandmother's
selfishness makes all the family into a fatality.

Even though there is similarity in the previous paragraph, there are also many
distinctions. 

The female lead character in "Displaced Person" is materialism. She wants to get
profit as much as she could but does not give the proper amount for her worker. 

Her brain and heart conclude that "One fellow's misery is the other fellow's gain." (O'connor, 1971, p. 203).

She is full of the love of material wealth. She also does not like help for humanity. Therefore, She said in the story that she does not have any obligation to help others "I am not responsible for die world's misery," (O'connor, 1971, p. 223). 

The female lead in this story does not believe in God. She believes in her effort to get the goals. Her success in the farm makes her pride grew bigger. 

Mrs. McIntyre behaves as if she can do everything by herself alone. She felt that Christ is an "extra" for her. Therefore it does not fit in her materialistic farm. She even tells the priest about her thought that 

"Christ was just another D.P. (displaced person)" (O'connor, 1971, p. 229).

On the other hand, the grandmother of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is a conventionally
religious woman. 

It can be proven in her words when she begged the Misfit to make her alive. She denies the divinity of Christ because of the gun. She also thinks that she and all her ethical system is very good. She loves to pay more attention to her style. She always wants everyone to
know that she is a lady.

"In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on
the highway would know at once that she was a lady". (O'connor, 1971, p.118)

She has a very big self-centered life. It makes she has a conclusion that all the problems are because of the others. 

She lives with lies toward Christ because she does not want to not consider as a lady.

These two selected stories of Flannery O'connor are very interesting. How the lead characters got the things for their bad deeds. The two lead female characters are very selfish.

They think that they always right. 

Therefore they do anything towards the others as they want.

They become racist toward other people. 

However, Mrs. Mclntyre openly admitted that she does not believe in God, while the grandmother as the lady wants to shows that she is a good
Christian. At the end of these stories, the female lead characters acknowledge their bad habit even though it is too late.

References
Bloom, H. (2009). Bloom's Modern Critical Views: Flannery O'Connor-New Edition. New York: Infobase
Publishing.
Gale, C. L. (2015). A Study Guide to Flannery O'Conner's A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Gale, Cengage
Learning.
O'connor, F. (1971). The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Ross, T. (1996). The Emergence of "Literature": Making and Reading the English Canon in the Eighteenth
Century. ELH.