I have chosen for my research essay, ” A good man is hard to find” by Flannery O’Connor. My thesis will be focused on southern femininity and the deceptive image of wholesomeness through god fearing and charm, which allowed the grand mother to constantly maneuver every decision to suit her wants. Through out most of the story, she uses her overbearing charisma to manipulate every outcome or get a pass for inappropriate speech and behavior. Using past southern teachings as the standard and imposing herself and her beliefs onto everyone else in the story. I initially explained how I found the grand mother harmless. In the beginning I thought she was trying to gain ground on how her upbringing is important and was using certain tactics to get through to stubborn grand children, including her son. She wanted to feel important. Which means I also fell for her southern charm. Her moment of grace was short lived and didn’t redeem the grand mother at the end. However, her ignorance didn’t seem to be harmful until the very end and it seemed easily missed by me because of the image she portrayed as a southern god-fearing woman who only wanted to share her roots with her family. I will be using the BMCC Library to collect information on white southern womanhood.
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4 thoughts on “Week 10 – Melissa Cordero”
I was torn in between “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor and “Salvation” by Langston Hughes. “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” was such a good read. Your thesis sums the story up perfectly and even dissects the why the grandmother is the way she is. The research on white southern womanhood should be very interesting, especially in era the grandmother was raised in. Best of luck with your research.
I liked your response. As someone whose half of the family is from the south, specifically St. Louis, I can like this outlook and analysis that you took from this story. I was wondering what secondary source you were thinking of using. For instance, were you going to use a literary review of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” that explains and goes deeper on this and the grandmother? Or are you going to do a paper on how southern womanhood as a whole.
Melissa, as I’ve been commenting to everyone, I specifically asked students to supply their thesis statement word-for-word. This is because I want others to see examples of thesis statements. To any student who is wondering about your choice of essay, I will note here that I gave permission to you to use a different story because you presented a strong case for wanting to write about “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”
Hello Melissa I think your thesis is interesting since being charming can help to be seen as wholesome, but I would never think about using god fearing to try and make someone appear to be wholesome. I initially thought that the grandma harmless just like you, but I also thought that she was a bit annoying. I am sure that your research on white southern womanhood will help a lot in order to make your thesis even stronger.