Themes in Writings
Shirley Jackson
Eng.125 Introduction to Literature
The themes of Miss Flannery O’ Conner are evident throughout her writings. She writes about ordinary people with ordinary everyday problems, like religion, love, the lack of love and the abnormalities in people, not to mention the alienation of other people. I believe that Miss O’ Conner’s writings could easily be a reflection of her own life. Also, of her own religious convictions, and her own pains with illness. Her many themes throughout her writings reflect country living, in which she herself lived. In “Good Country People” Miss O’Conner writes about a woman with a wooden leg and a terminal bad heart which could easily be related to her own terminal and crippling illness of lupus. In “The life you save may be your own” she writes of a character Mr. Shifitlet who has one arm, he takes advantage of old Mrs. Lucynell and marries her daughter who is age 33, but has the mind of a fifteen year old, because she is mentally challenged. The theme of love is evident in her writings because the mothers in both writings would do anything to help their ailing daughters be happy, even if they can’t make them physically whole. I chose theses writings along with “Girl “by Jamaica Kincaid because it is so obvious as each story is read that these women loved their daughters to no ends, and just wanted to see them happy. For instance, in Good Country People the charter of Joy Hopewell is definatly in search of love, and an inner peace, she needs to be taught how to love herself as well as others. The author makes note that Hulga is spiritually as well as physically handicapped. She is a young lady in her mid thirties, that had the misfortune of a hunting accident when she was ten, that resulted in her leg being removed, thus she became bitter an d has every since been...