There are a lot of things I would have missed if I had not read the excerpt from activity one. The theme and plot of the story isn’t linear. So, without the excerpt I believe I would find many of the scenes disjointed or confusing pertaining to where the author is trying to take the readers in this story. The specific idea would be the grandmother being recognized as the “Heroine” and the misfit later on in life, going back to Jesus and becoming a prophet due to the grandmother’s words. She played a part in saving the misfit and what she said to the misfit before getting shot aided him in choosing a better life. Additionally, I would have thought that whatever the grandmother was saying was ineffective because he still shot her. But maybe he shot her because her words were having an effect on him and shooting her was his only defense against those words. I believe I would not have been able to pick up on these ideas by simply reading the story on its own without the excerpt.
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4 thoughts on “Keona Lewis – discussion 9”
Hello Keona, I also found it difficult to believe that the Grandmother was the “Heroine”. While I don’t think she is a villain she is certainly no hero, her continued selfishness is what led to the destruction of her and her family. Had she not made up a lie about silver behind a panel the kids would’ve never annoyed the father to the point of driving them to their doom, if the grandmother could’ve left the cat with someone for a few days the accident wouldn’t have happened, and had she mentioned that she made an error about the house she was referencing was in Tennessee her family would’ve lived. I find it difficult to accept that it cost the sacrifice of a whole family for a convict to “return to God” was worth it.
Nan, your observation that the Misfit’s redemption is not worth the annihilation of an entire family is a good one. This is one of the objections non-religious people might have to O’Connor’s explanation of her own story. And you are absolutely right that the Grandmother is the cause of the entire tragedy. Out of pure selfishness, she decides to bring the cat along, hidden in a basket. (This is the one part of the story I have problems with because I have never met a cat that would just stay in a basket under some newspapers). But her son is also weak person. He does things he doesn’t want to do ostensibly because it is too much trouble to assert his own feelings. It seems that when one person is strong, she can exert her will on a whole group of people who are either weak, indifferent, oblivious—or are children with no real power. I think this story is in large part about the dangers of complacency—that you have to be alive to your own beliefs and live by them.
Keona, I’m afraid I don’t quite grasp what you are saying about how you would have found scenes disjointed. Isn’t the plot of the story quite linear? A family goes on a road trip, goes off the path, meets the Misfit, and are murdered. Is this non-linear? The part about the Misfit as a “prophet gone wrong” is interesting though, and I think, easy to miss without O’Connor’s explanation. In her view, the Misfit has far more potential for goodness than anyone in that dysfunctional family. He has all the qualities of a prophet. He is philosophical, experienced, wordly, passionate, intelligent, and single-minded. The problem is that he has chosen the wrong side. O’Connor writes that she likes to think that the Grandmother’s gesture will be enough of a “thorn in his heart” to bring him to the side of goodness, where he can be a great force in the world. Then O’Connor smiles and says, “But that’s another story.”
Hey Keona, I felt the same exact way. If we didn’t have the essay as like a guided reference for the story I would’ve never interpreted it as fate or a family indirectly getting ready for their prophecy. Consequently, she also considers the grandmother to be the “heroin” of the story. Which I agree with, she’s the one who persuades the family to do what she says even though they don’t want to do what she wants. Nevertheless, she manages to manipulate them to go to Florida and run into the Misfit. For some reason even though she was battling with her reality of knowing that she was going to die eventually because she was coming of age, do you think that she was relieved because she was able to die with her family? I have so many mixed emotions about this story now all because of the grandmothers characteristics and the insight from O’ Connor.