It's a Slow Fade When Black and White Have Turned To Gray (First Long Post Ever) #excitement

 Let me begin by saying that I absolutely love O'Connor. Her stories always have a great message and irony in them. One of the things that I loved the most about all of her stories is that there are no absolutes. I don't think that O'Connor intended for there to be good guys and bad guys in her stories. It seems like all of her characters are flawed. These stories are not told in black and white, but instead it explodes with color since the characters are written with depth instead of being merely morally just or morally unjust.

Primarily let's look at "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." Since the grandmother and her family are introduced first, they are seen as the good people. However, they are not absolutely good. It seemed like the grandmother and the father of the children were constantly in conflict. First, they conflicted about the destination of the vacation, then they fought about whether they should go to the house with "the secret-panel". I think it's safe to say that if it weren't for the grandmother's idea to go to that house, or her verbal recognition of the Misfit, the family would still be alive. I think the two morally questionable people in this story are the grandmother and the Misfit. You can't say that the Misfit is all good because although he doesn't know why he was in the penitentiary, he was punished for some crime, and he had a direct role in the murder of the family in the story, and murdered the grandmother. However, he was not all bad either because he showed a moment of weakness in killing the grandmother. He was at the point of almost crying before the grandmother was killed by him. He said that if he knew Jesus had raised from the dead, maybe he wouldn't have to resort to the criminal lifestyle. The grandmother also isn't all good or all bad. She isn't all bad, because she truly had not done anything wrong, except attempt to hug a criminal! But however, she was not all good either. She kept trying to reason with the criminal. Trying to say that he came from nice people and such. She was trying to weasel herself out of a situation she created. She took it a step too far when she tried to compare the Misfit to her family, and her slyness is what led to her destruction.

The same can be said in Good Country People. You cannot assume that Hulga is a morally just person just because she was introduced before the bible salesman. I honestly could not stand Hulga. I thought she was a genuinely evil person with her Atheistic beliefs. Then, I was introduced to the bible salesman. I said to myself as I read for the first time, "Finally! A voice of reason!". My mindset of the salesman changed when I found out his true intentions. As he seduced Hulga, and stole her leg (still funny), my thoughts of them reversed. Suddenly, Hulga was a character I pitied. She was so helpless and defenseless stuck up in that barn, and the bible salesman was pure evil. He did not believe in what he was selling and only was interested in Hulga for her legs (so to speak). O'Connor did a great job of making us believe one way of the two characters, then completely changing our opinions of them.

You will see similiar things in The Artificial Nigger. It appalled me when the grandson ran into a woman, and a swarm of people comes around her wanting to know who is responsible for him. Then, the grandfather denied knowing the boy. He was obviously with the child, because he and the grandfather were the only non-African-Americans in the neighborhood. He did not fool any of the people, and the woman in which he ran into was more resentful of the old man for denying knowing his grandson than of the boy for running into her. You would think that a grandfather was tender-hearted, a loving figure, and would cherish his grandchildren, but this man broke those barriers. However, the boy seems a little naive in my opinion. He      feels betrayed and resents the grandfather at the time of the betrayal, but instead of keeping that betrayal, he had forgiven the man. I know that Dr. Abernathy spoke of grace in "A Good Man Is Hard To Find", but it is a bit more obvious in this story.  The grandfather did not deserve forgiveness. He denied knowing the child and that should not be forgiven. However, the child did. I might be wrong, but I think this is a loose-allusion to Peter's denial of Christ. Peter denied Christ, and Peter did not deserve to be forgiven, but he was anyway. They were shown mercy by not being punished, but they were shown grace, because they were given what they did not deserve: forgiveness.

This moral gray area that I'm rambling on about is also present in Revelation. Mrs. Turpin is a terrible lady. She enters the doctor's office and immediately labels everyone in the room. She is the type of person who will judge you before you've said a word to them. Then you read of the magnificent Mary Grace.  Honestly, because of the acne, I instantly disliked Mary Grace, yet she let that mean old Mrs. Turpin know what she really was: an old wart hog that deserved to go to Hell. I had some respect for the pimple-faced girl after that. However, the point I would like to make through this story is through the actual revelation that Turpin has. She sees countless souls ascending to Heaven. First, the freaks, the lunatics, the white trash, and the Negros. Then, the "good country people" like herself bringing up the rear. It reminded me of the  "First shall be last, and last shall be first" verse in Scripture. The lowly and worst of the citizens were the first that were ascending into heaven. Those that are looked upon as the socially shunned and bad people (i.e. the negroes and white-trash) are equal in Heaven.

In conclusion to my post, I would like to bring together my point: there is a moral gray area. There is no one that is all good nor all bad. The only person that was all good died on the cross. However, the rest of us are flawed. Although, this is nothing to fret about. The reason that I love O'Connors works is that her characters have depth. You see her characters flaws, and we can relate to them. If you see a morally perfect person, you cannot relate to that because you are a morally imperfect person. The person that I believe most of us relate to is the Misfit. We are constantly fighting this battle for good and evil. He seemed to be losing his battle, but we are fighting this battle so that our good side triumphs over bad. And with that I bid ado.

Commented on Hunter's "Grandma Got Run Over By The Misfit"