Biography

        Flannery O’Connor, born a single child to Catholic parents, and grew up living a “largely uneventful” life on a Georgian farm (Meyer 351). Her writings do not portray this however, as she wrote with religious undertones while introducing secular characters into her stories, making them quite intriguing to readers. She most likely found her inspiration from going to a public school after moving to central Georgia, and, being from a strong Catholic background, came face to face with these secular ideas and worldly-minded people for the first time. Her stories also have southern settings or ties considering that is where she had the most experiences in her unexpectedly short lifetime (Meyer 352). At age 25, O’Connor was diagnosed with lupus, “a rare, incurable blood disease”, which her father had also passed away from while she was only in high school (Meyer 351). She died 14 years later at age 39, but even so, she was later recognized for her works accomplished in her lifetime; she finished two novels, and won the National Book Award for her collection of short stories titled “The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor” (Meyer 350).

Literary Devices in O'Connor's Works

One example of a literary device present in O'Connor's writing is the use of foreshadowing. In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, O’Connor uses foreshadowing about the escaped criminal though the grandmother’s words in the beginning of the story to predict their interaction with The Misfit in the future. “ ‘Now look here Bailey,’ she said, ‘here read this’, and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. ‘Here this fellow that calls himself the misfit is aloose from the federal pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did’ ”(O’Connor 356). That quote foreshadows “The grandmother shrieked. She scramble to her feet and stood staring. ‘You're the misfit!’ she said. ‘I recognized you at once!’ ” (O’Connor 362). 

Rationale for selection: By talking about the Misfit from the very first few sentences of the story, it causes the audience to remember the name and take its significance into consideration before knowing the rest of the plot. It also foreshadows the grandmother recognizing the criminal after how she was the one who warned her son about the possible dangers associated with their traveling. 

Another example of a literary device is irony found in O'Connor's story "Good Country People".“But she was as sensitive about the artificial leg as a peacock about its tail. No one ever touched it but her. She took care of it as someone else would his soul, in private and almost with her own eyes turned away” (O’Connor 378). 

Rationale for selection: Hulga’s strong walls were brought down by the boy, and she began to trust him more than anyone else. She compared her soul to the leg, and so she felt as if she was sharing with him a piece of herself. By stealing her wooden leg, he had literally stolen a piece of her and the trust that she could never get back.