While there is a distinction between the pieces; A Rose for Emily and A Good Man is Hard to Find, the parallels are more notable. Both parables give insights into Southern manners and other accepted conventions in southern society, either purposefully or accidentally. They are great embodiments of America’s rich literary legacy and the utilization of the priceless southern gothic style in their writings. Grotesque and sarcasm are the vital distinguishing qualities of the gothic style in analyzing the ideals of the American South. The writers freely convey their attitude toward the bizarre aspect of Southern practices in their short tales by O’Connor and Faulkner. The presentation of their distinctive protagonists underpins such a stance. Although they represent distinct facets of the rich southern culture, Emily and the Grandmother reflect very similar traits. Juxtaposing the two tales allows for an in-depth examination of the authors’ different components in literature.
Emily Grierson’s narrative is told in a non-chronological style in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily.” After a solitary existence, she passes away aged seventy-four. The intrigued residents of Jefferson in Mississippi congregate for her burial to meditate on her life. Their remembrances reveal specifics about Emily’s contentious affair with Homer Barron, a Northern worker. To generate the impression that the whole town is reminiscing on Emily’s life, the narrator employs the aggregate pronoun “we.” The narrative is at times interpreted as an allusion for the Old South’s aversion to modernization, as embodied by Emily and Homer and Jefferson’s younger generations.
Similarly, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is a Southern medieval narrative authored by Flannery O’Connor. She characterized it as the narrative of a family wiped out while going to Florida by a fugitive convict, also called the Misfit. The tale is a black comic wherein an assassin is the only character who comprehends why finding a good man is difficult. The piece explores religious faith, adultery, and the power of restoration. Additionally, it is a morality tale about stupidity involving a preventable road accident and a self-righteous assassin preaching heresy and proving that he recognizes more than the lyric that opens chapter three of the book of Ecclesiastes, “A Time for Everything .”The tired sociopath appears to have the intelligence to realize he will be apprehended and punished by the authorities at some point – an “eye for an eye,” something that seems to match, rather than contradict, his concept of fair retribution.
Both Flannery O’ Conner and William Faulkner have a dark and gruesome side to their narratives. The primary emphasis of Flannery’s narrative is on the grandma’s antiqueness, which she exploits to her advantage in recounting stories and avoiding being slain. Emily is likewise old-fashioned in Faulkner’s tale, A Rose for Emily, but she cannot go with the times and keeps clinging to the past. They both share grim endings due to their inability to let go of the past, and they employ their antiquated behaviors in different ways. Emily displays evidence of not enjoying change in “A Rose for Emily” by dismissing her father’s demise and refusing to leave the house. At the same time, in O’Conner’s story, the Grandmother illustrates the proper manner of being a woman and her jokes about the plantation and the Black kid.
These two stories demonstrate the link between the past and change through Emily Grierson in Faulkner’s tale and the Grandmother in O’Connor’s story. The subsequent events of the past profoundly alter these women, more to their detriment than to their benefit. Throughout the narrative, Emily is characterized as a sorrowful lady living in an old dusty farm mansion. To illustrate her and her overall immobility, Faulkner frequently utilizes dismal, melancholy, and ancient words. Along with Emily’s pre-reformist background, these characteristics make her a stand-in for the elderly southern belle and her fading customs. Her ghost look reflects her hidden obsession with the dead, which is disclosed towards the story’s conclusion. Emily’s gruesomeness is evident in how she disrupts and alters normalcy in her daily life while having the look, stagnancy, and immobility of death.
In O’Connor’s short story, the Grandmother is often described by how she wears. She dresses in vibrant colors, such as a “purple spray of fabric violets carrying a sachet,” to emphasize and confirm her femininity compared to the other characters (354). The elderly southern Belle figure is suggestive of the old style, attention, and care she pays to her appearance, which correlates nicely with her Southern upbringing and history in Tennessee. As the aging Belle image is linked to a troubling past that revolves around oppressive forms of womanhood, enslavement, its terrible legacy, and a deadly regional patriotism, the figure becomes hideous. This terrible background dehumanizes the Grandmother’s ostensibly feminine attractiveness. Miss Emily’s resemblance to corpses lends the narrative a perverted surreal quality, but the Grandmother’s aging beauty connection prompts a more violent kind of grotesque.
In the imaginary town of Jefferson, Faulkner’s plot blends the old with the contemporary. According to Klein (155), Faulkner’s work represents the worst, most devastating parts of southern existence; bigotry, poverty, and southern history’s overwhelming load distort his characters. The narrator introduces Rose, a character deserving of suspicion. However, the townsfolk, including the narrator, are possibly the most oppressive characters we encounter in the reading. “we were not thrilled, but justified when she approached thirty and remained unmarried; despite chaos in the family, she never would have passed up all her opportunities if they had actually surfaced” (Faulkner 3). The author did not see any wrongdoing by Miss Rose, except for being born amidst “the custodians of the august names.” As in Flannery’s narration the story’s antagonist is not immediately apparent.
Faulkner’s employment of the narrator’s voice in his tale is noteworthy. A first-person plural narration is one of Faulkner’s most clever literary innovations. Even though Faulkner does not stick to a single narrative voice, the narrator is one of the primary characters thanks to the adoption of the first plural. Klein (231) suggests that, in using his voice, Faulkner intended for the readers to remember the chatty first-person approach of society opinion writers. This highlights the erratic buzz of southern small-town life. Although southern village life has its charms, it also has its faults. The narration ignores the extent to which the villagers show compulsive and coercive conduct by focusing on Emily Grierson’s basic ‘fear.’
The audience has already guessed Emily’s acute isolation and Homer’s death by the saddening end of the tale, A Rose for Emily. In the beginning, she is described as “a tradition, a responsibility, and a care while she was alive; a kind of inherited obligation on the village” (Faulkner 1). However, it could be argued that the town’s attitude towards her is more akin to that of a theatrical spectacle. The town views Emily as a reflection and embodiment of its distinguished names; therefore, she targets much trivial gossip. This creates room to question the strategies of the younger generations of the south compared to their predecessors.
Nevertheless, it is feasible to argue that tragedy plays a more significant part in Flannery O’Connor’s tale than most others. For example, the Grandmother urges that the family visit a plantation mansion reportedly situated in Georgia. She overlooks the fact that this mansion was built in Tennessee. This decision has a disastrous effect; they encounter a gang of fugitive inmates who murder them. O’Connor utilizes some literary elements to predict the Grandmother’s doom, including Misfit’s automobiles description of appearing as a hearse. Flannery O’Connor is attempting to foreshadow the approaching calamity in this way. Ultimately, he depicts the sad irony of the circumstances leading up to the Grandmother’s death.
Overall, Faulkner and Flannery’s desire to learn why and how people become condemned to failure is demonstrated. The result in both cases is explained by a person’s inability to accept changes. Moreover, failing to realize one’s own mistakes should be discussed. The authors employ various plot elements and creative strategies even though a person’s inevitable fall is a major plot point in both scenarios. A person’s consciousness and their inability to accept change should be given much regard. Finally, despite the protagonists’ numerous moral failings, both writers successfully evoke remorse for them.
References
Klein, Thomas. “The Ghostly Voice of Gossip in Faulkner’s A ROSE FOR EMILY.” The Explicator 65.4 (2007): 150-232.
Mrdoige.com. 2022. [online] Available at: <http://mrdoige.com/documents/oconnor_aGoodManIsHardToFind.pdf> [Accessed 26 February 2022].
O’Connor, Flannery. A good man is hard to find. New English Library, 1962.
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