The Grandmother in A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery OConnor :: Papers

The Grandmother in A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor The grandmother is the central character in the story "A good man is hard to find," by Flannery O'Connor. The grandmother is a manipulative, deceitful, and self-serving woman who lives in the past. She doesn't value her life as it is, but glorifies what it was like long ago when she saw life through rose-colored glasses. She is pre-scented by O'Connor as being a prim and proper lady dressed in a suit, hat, and white cotton gloves. This woman will do whatever it takes to get what she wants and she doesn't let anyone else's feelings stand in her way. She tries to justify her demands by convincing herself and her family that her way is not only the best way, but the only way. The grandmother is determined to change her family's vacation destination as she tries to manipulate her son into going to Tennessee instead of Florida. The grandmother says that "she couldn't answer to her conscience if she took the children in a direction where there was a convict on the loose." The children, the y tell her "stay at home if you don't want to go." The grandmother then decides that she will have to go along after all, but she is already working on her own agenda. The grandmother is very deceitful, and she manages to sneak the cat in the car with her. She decides that she would like to visit an old plantation and begins her pursuit of convincing Bailey to agree to it. She describes the old house for the children adding mysterious details to pique their curiosity. "There was a secret panel in this house," she states cunningly knowing it is a lie. The grandmother always stretches the truth as much as possible. She not only lies to her family, but to herself as well. The grandmother doesn't live in the present, but in the past. She dresses in a suit to go on vacation. She states, "in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." She constantly tries to tell everyone what they should or should not do. She informs the children th at they do not have good manners and that "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else." when she was a child.

The Dragon Creature as Fairy Tail Creature

Dragons, for example, are usually giant fearless creatures that destroy anything and everything in their way. They capture maidens, kill knights and possess extraordinary confidence, but the dragon in this poem shows none of those characteristics. The majority of his section is filled with complaints about his portrayal in the painting. like the angle he was painted at, and he is upset that two of his feet weren't in the painting. He also has no interest in the maiden that he has captured, he actually finds her quite ugly. All he is worrying about is what people are going to think of him, when usually a dragon wouldn’t care, all they want to do is kill, and capture, but this dragon shows little confidence or interest in those tasks.Traditionally maidens are supposed to be pure at heart and pure at mind, but this maiden is in no way like that. She is very much attracted to the dragon who has captured her and she has no interest in being rescued, by the possibly ugly knight. Her lust towards that dragon is very strong, and her supposed â€Å"pure† mind is actually quite dirty. Unfortunately, her little crush must end because the dragon was defeated, which meant she might as well run off with the Knight who â€Å"saved† her, because she needs to think about her future.The knight in this story cares little about the maiden he is saving and more about his credibility as a Knight. He has all the latest horse, and weapons, and he is the most qualified to slay the dragon. He wants to finish the job that was assigned to him and he doesn't understand why this maiden won't just get out of his way so he can rescue her and add another achievement to his already stacked resume. He portrays a more modern mind then the customary knight, and work is most important to him. Each speaker from each section is showing a different side, then readers would usually see or expect, and the sides they are showing are pretty unpleasant which is why the poem is called à ¢â‚¬Å"Not My Best Side†. There is also humor added to the usually serious love story.the dragon, unlike it's mythological counterpart has quite a sophisticated vocabulary, use of adjectives like ‘ostentatiously beardless' and the idiom ‘old chap' suggests an intelligent, well spoken, stereotypical British,  Upper Class gentleman, the antithesis of a ferocious monster. The line ‘Not my best side, I'm afraid.', reveals the dragon's self conciousness and obsession with appearance, a reocurring theme.The nouns ‘artist' and ‘pose' indicate the poem is about a character in a painting and the dragon is highly critical of both the painter, ‘Poor chap, he had this obsession with Triangles, so he left off two of my Feet.' and the other characters, ‘Why should my victim be so Unattractive as to be inedible,'. It is the comical and conversational tone that makes the dragon so likeable and lots of rhetorical questions draw the reader in, particul arly ‘(What, after all, are two feet To a monster?)' which, enclosed in brackets gives the impression the dragon is addressing the reader directly.Continuing the pattern of reversing the stereotypes, the girl is presented as a slightly feminist, with a mind of her own, ‘It's hard for a girl to be sure if She wants to be rescued.', not the†¦.

Rain of Gold Occupied America Comparison

A Dreamer’s Struggles In Victor Villasenor novel, Rain of Gold is an accurate view in how he portrays what his family experienced in migrating into the Southwest of the United States, in attempt to live a safe prosperous life. Lupe, Victoriano, and Juan are three characters from the novel that best illustrates the struggles that many immigrants face in crossing over in search for work and safety. In Occupied America, by Rodolfo Acuna supports the experiences of the characters in the novel, making it clear that the events that took place in Rain of Gold are in fact what people experience in the real life.For instance, Lupe struggled with the threat of being rapped as well as any other young lady in the novel; she also struggled with education by either not having the support of the community to establish a school district, and or putting obstacles that keep her from attending school when school was available. In the case of Victoriano, he experienced discrimination from his own race, and beatings from authority.Lastly, Juan, struggled, like Victoriano, discrimination, and like the other characters in the novel struggled to cross borders and under goes difficult struggles as a young boy, and then the biggest issue we still struggle with today, assimilation. Growing up was difficult for Lupe. She endured a lot of hardship growing up, where instead of living a peaceful childhood she had to constantly hide and be aware of those around because at any given moment a creature from hell could just come and grab her and snatch her innocence from her, on page 74 of novel Lupe states that, â€Å"No girl was safe anymore.La Liebre and his men were raping any girl that happened to walk by the plaza unescorted†, examining this quote it is evident that no female girl or woman was safe in their own home, in order to run errands or do daily chores away from home they needed to be accompanied to keep them from harm. In Occupied America makes it easy to understand th at these incidents truly did occur to women, â€Å"Californio families lived in no Utopia. They were patriarchal; sexual violence, rape and incest burden fell on the poor and native women, who did not have â€Å"protectors†. (pg 127) In other words women had no worth, and no one to defend their worth. Being a woman myself I cannot imagine what they went through and to think that many of them after the years perhaps thought that this is in fact was their purpose, to be nothing. Lupe was no exception she encountered many incidents where she was nearly raped, as a matter of fact a lot of the girl of her town were raped so bad that they died from the impact. â€Å"And not only had the bandits killed Don Tiburcio, they’d taken their gold, raped Paloma and other two Indian girls, killing all of them. (pg 198) Another obstacle Lupe experienced that majority of girl’s experienced were no support for an education. It was a privilege for any child to go to school, none less a girl. The novel puts emphasis through the story how Lupe struggled to get an education. For example, when Don Manuel declares, â€Å"He’s under no written obligation to supply a school for the village. † He was arguing with the mothers of the students whom attended school when they discontinued paying Senora Munoz, though she continued to teach which was leading her to secretly starve.But the village united and helped maintain education by paying the teacher what they could as long as they could and took turn having her over for dinner and feeding her in the meantime she was there. Another occasion was when Lupe was older and by then she had migrated to the United States, she had returned to school and although she was making great progress and maintain good discipline and determination she went through a hurdle that scared her from ever returning she explained to her mother stating, â€Å"Mr.Horn my new teacher, was real nice to me, too, helping me after schoo l; but then one day he, he, he grabbed me from behind while I was writing on the blackboard. †(pg267) This frightened Lupe especially when he called her a dirty Mexican prick-tease that she was too old to be in school. In her time women Mexican women were taught to be respected and not allow a man to ever mistreat them, their customs were solid in marrying a virgin, so this act from a professor raged anyone with values like Lupe. Occupied America† also supports lack of education affirming, â€Å"Spanish authorities were not inclined to educate them. † Meaning women, â€Å"Few religious schools dedicates to educating young women existed. † (pg 27) It is clear that there was very little if any support to educate women, Euro American viewed women to be inferior and keeping them ignorant was in their best interest, though I am proud to say that today because of good men and intellectual ingenious women the female gender has an overall equal fair chance at an ed ucation.But like everything else it was not an easy rode to et there. Victoriano, which in the novel is Lupe’s older brother by a few years, battled his own demons. For example, when he saw that his family was struggling to survive he ran to find any scrap of gold that was left behind were the miners threw old scraps of materials, during his search he founds a few rocks that could potentially had been gold, when he ran into trouble doing absolutely nothing wrong, â€Å"Nothing he could say would stop these vicious men. They were sneering at him like huge, hungry cats ready to pounce on a mouse. (pg85) At this point La Liebre found him digging the grounds and questioned him and accused him of stealing though that was open for anyone to dig, but they were just itching for violence. They tried to hang him stating that they were going to make an example of him for stealing, but his mother would die before watching her only make son die. In the process she managed to save her tee ns live from being hanged and shot the main leader of La Liebre, forcing the other men who were still alive to leave the village leaving the people to celebrate for uniting against terror.Victoriano having experienced injustice beatings and almost death provides lucid narrative of authority abuse. Where an official or someone with some form of power takes matters into their own hands. â€Å"Los Mineros† video delegates the experiences of miners in the United States that were brought from two main territories Chihuahua and Sinaloa, based on their past experience as miners, little did they know that they would be getting paid scrap money and live in horrible conditions.When they reached their ending point they began to organize protest and fight for healthcare and welfare. During their battle many participants were jailed and beaten sometimes to death, for protesting stating that they were disturbing the peace. In reality government officials would make up any story to imprison these men, which were only fighting for what was owned to them. The video was not made up by actors it was a documentary of the men who experienced the unfair treatment of the â€Å"white man. Evidence is all around us it’s just a matter of us realizing and making a change. Juan was an interesting character. He came of a line of heroes and embraced his ancestry; he was a boy who grew up to be proud of his past. When I first began to read into Juan’s story I had the impression he was a grown man based on is actions and attitude, little did I know he was just a thirteen year old boy who know more about life than the average 20 year old today.Juan went through a lot of discrimination throughout the novel, at one point when he is talking to two of his nephews he informs the two that, â€Å"Hell he treated the dogs better than me. He only had eyes for my brother Domingo, who was blue-eyed like himself. †(pg228) and goes on and tells the boys that prejudice exist in Mexico too, meaning that it’s not just in the United States that narrow-mindedness is present but in their native country as well.In the article, â€Å"The True Significance of the Word White† maintains how assimilation came to birth and how the mindset of the Euro American affected the culture and lifestyle of the Latin people. One piece of the article it’s obvious what they thought of the Mexican people and therefore look down on then and discriminated against them, â€Å"European Americans believed Mexicans were an â€Å"indolent† people, whose backwardness reflected their having poor personal habits and collective deficiencies such as laziness or a penchant for extravagances. In them succeeding in passing along this â€Å"opinion† of Mexican people it was just as easy for Mexican people to accept this concept. In result, any trace of being Mexican was viewed as even being ugly, yet if one was Mexican but had traces that made them look white i t was praised upon and it made it quite easy to blend with the rest and reject their cultural which is what the Euro Americans wanted and succeeded in. This is also referred to as assimilation. In the novel many of the characters adapted assimilation, Juan was sure to be one of them.When he left Montana to visit his mother his sister and mother noticed he was not the same young boy they once knew. He was almost unrecognizable at first and second glance, â€Å"Just look at you! These clothes, and the taxi† (pg223) His sister took notice of Juan’s transformation, and though she did not emphasize too much about how much he had changed it was apparent that he had lost a part of himself along the way. He realized that he could hardly speak clear Spanish anymore having difficulty pronouncing words fluently.In â€Å"Occupied America† there is an important message written that is empowering and influential, it reads, â€Å"Yet the debate is not whether assimilation is taking place, but what it means. Most agree that assimilation into life in the U. S. is not an instant transformation in which an immigrant suddenly becomes a full-flagged American. Nor does it require the obligation of ethnic identity. Instead, assimilation is a long-term, sometimes multi-generational, process in which newcomers of different backgrounds adopt basic notions of American life—equality under law, due process, and economic opportunity.Put another way, assimilation is not about immigrants rejecting their past, but about people of different racial, religious, and cultural backgrounds coming to believe that they are a part of an overarching American family. † It was necessary to write it all out to truly capture the depths of this message. Thou some may argue was assimilation is this we can all agree in. In the case of Juan it took him a while to find him and to realize that one must first think with our minds before acting on impulse.Juan experienced a true r oller coaster like I am sure many did. I felt that Juan stands out among the rest because if analyzed piece by piece it is true that he experienced by far what most immigrants have and do presently in their quest to the southwest. Rain of Gold, Occupied America and other resources studied in class, identifies how events stated in the material used was very much so true, and though people may deny or ignore the truth it is not likely to be forgotten if informed, it is up to the individual to own up to the truth.The three characters Lupe, Victoriano, and Juan were good examples in the novel that added emphasis to real life experiences of people migrating to the southwest. Though there is so much to say about these characters and others with just concentrating with this analysis one can conclude that a life of an immigrant is not a choice or a preference but a form of survival.

The Sinking of the Lusitania essays

The Sinking of the Lusitania essays In the early part of the twentieth century, the only way to traverse the Atlantic was by ocean liner. It was a time of fierce competition between rival lineswith passengers expecting not only a speedy crossing, but luxurious accommodations as well. In 1903 Lord Inverclyde created the Cunard Line. Construction soon began on two fast and luxurious liners that were to challenge the German vessels that had held the Blue Riband since 1897. The resulting sisterships RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania would be a firm reassertion of British supremacy at sea. Launched at the River Clyde in June 16, 1906, RMS Lusitania was a grand ship and the first of the two sister ships to be launched. At 785 feet in length and 31,550 gross tons, she took the title of largest liner afloat. Her maiden voyage took place September 7, 1907, and in October 1907 she recaptured the coveted Blue Riband from the German liner Deutschland, which Britain had failed to obtain since the industrialization of Germany. The construction of Lusitania was financed by generous loans from the British government. In return for the generous loans, the Admiralty could requisition Lusitania or her sister in times of war. This would be key in the demise of the Lusitania. World War I would eventually erupt. During the war the Allies blockaded Germany preventing them from receiving any supplies, food or munitions. This led to Germanys development of a new weapon called the U-boat or submarine, as we now know it. This would allow the Germans to form a counter blockade as well as sink all these unsuspecting ships with out getting caught. The Lusitania left New York harbor on May 1, 1915, nobody was expecting the tragedy that was soon to occur. Although a warning against Americans boarding British ships signed by the Imperial German Embassy had appeared in the morning papers on the day the vessel was scheduled to leave, no one figured they were in...

mind and machine essays

mind and machine essays Technology has traditionally evolved as the result of human needs. Invention, when prized and rewarded, will invariably rise-up to meet the free market demands of society. It is in this realm that Artificial Intelligence research and the resultant expert systems have been forged. Much of the material that relates to the field of Artificial Intelligence deals with human psychology and the nature of consciousness. Exhaustive debate on consciousness and the possibilities of consciousnessness in machines has adequately, in my opinion, revealed that it is most unlikely that we will ever converse or interract with a machine of artificial consciousness. In John Searle's collection of lectures, Minds, Brains and Science, arguments centering around the mind-body problem alone is sufficient to convince a reasonable person that there is no way science will ever unravel the mysteries of consciousness. Key to Searle's analysis of consciousness in the context of Artificial Intelligence machines are refutations of strong and weak AI theses. Strong AI Theorists (SATs) believe that in the future, mankind will forge machines that will think as well as, if not better than humans. To them, pesent technology constrains this achievement. The Weak AI Theorists (WATs), almost converse to the SATs, believe that if a machine performs functions that resemble a human's, then there must be a correlation between it and consciousness. To them, there is no technological impediment to thinking machines, because our most advanced machines already think. It is important to review Searle's refutations of these respective theorists' proposition to establish a foundation (for the purpose of this essay) for discussing the applications of Artificial Intelligence, both now and in the future. Strong AI Thesis, according to Searle, can be described in four basic propositions. Proposition one categorizes human thought as the result of computational processes. G...

Five Key Steps to Working with Editors

Five Key Steps to Working with Editors For those writing a series, you’ll need to describe where the book fits into the series.  There are different ways to create lists; however Excel works well for me when preparing a timeline. I head the first three columns Character, Purpose, and Relationship to Protagonist. The fourth is labeled Chapter One, subheaded with the time and date. Below Character, I list primary and secondary characters as they appear in the book, then note something about their purpose under the chapter they appear in. The great thing about Excel is that it’s user friendly. You can easily manipulate rows and columns to insert or delete material.  You writers out there are probably groaning

Cottage Cheese Experiment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Cottage Cheese Experiment - Essay Example In the experiment, plate counts were used instead of direct microscopic counts or turbidity measurements because of the obvious advantages of the first method. Although plate counts can be tedious and time-consuming, this method is â€Å"relatively easy to perform† and it is â€Å"much more sensitive than turbidimetric measurement† (Brodhagen, 2007). This means that with plate counts, a relatively more accurate bacterial count can be obtained compared to obtaining turbidity measurements. The only disadvantages with plate counts, however, include the lengthy incubation period required for the colonies to grow and become visible, and the possibility of crowding of colonies which will most likely require serial dilution (Abedon, 2003). Nevertheless, these disadvantages do not compare to those of direct microscopic counts and turbidity measurements. In direct microscopic counts, the number of living cells cannot be distinguished from the dead cells, which may be included in the count (Brodhagen, 2007). In the same way, turbidity measurements may not fare well in the bacterial count as clumps of cottage cheese may not be distinguishable from the mass of cells that is expected to block of intercept light (Brodhagen, 2007). These two methods – direct microscopic count and turbidity measurement – are actually less time-consuming than plate counts, but the disadvantages simply outweigh this advantage. The goal of the cottage cheese experiment after all is accuracy and not speed. When it comes to the difference between the control cottage cheese and the experiment cottage cheese, the difference cannot be exactly determined due to insufficiency of data. Basically we need more information on the consistency or lumpiness of the cheeses, their gross appearance after the experiment and perhaps differences in texture, temperature and other aspects. The most obvious difference is that control cheese has no preservative added but experimental cheese has. It then follows that if this is the only difference between the two, then this is a fair test.   Besides, both cheeses have been subjected to the same variables – the same temperature and incubation period lengths, and assuming the same mode of preparation.