In Flannery O’Connor’s story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, simple and clear language gives deep meaning to everyday things. Raymond Carver once said that simple things can have great power, and this idea fits O’Connor’s writing well. For example, the grandmother’s hat is not just a hat—it shows how she sees herself and what society expects from her:
“In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.”
This line shows the grandmother’s concern with looking proper and being respected, even in death. The hat, a simple object, reveals her vanity and focus on appearances. By the end of the story, when the grandmother faces her own death, the hat loses its importance. This shows the difference between her earlier pride and her final vulnerability.
O’Connor’s clear, straightforward writing turns ordinary things, like the hat, into powerful symbols that add meaning to the story.
3 thoughts on “Michal Piencioszko discussion week 13”
Hey Michael I definitely agree with your post. Simple and clear and right to the point gives a deeper meaning to what the writer is saying and it gives us clarity as the reader. It’s very specific and precise which I like. It also gives us the chance to imagine what the writer is saying in a full and clear image mentally to get a better connection with the short story or poem. Nevertheless, its RAW and we don’t have to try to figure out what the writer is saying metaphorically.
Hi Michal, very interesting discussion. Your comment regarding the grandma’s hat In Flannery O’Connor’s story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is very interesting. It didn’t occur to me that the hat can have such significance. It indeed demonstrates that the grandma sees herself. The hat symbolizes the grandmother’s desire to be view by the public as a lady with high moral values., despite her hypocritical moral code toward others. However, when the accident occurs, the brim of the hat is now in tatters. As she drops the damaged hat, her deluded self-image falls away, much like the brim of the hat.
Michael, I think O’Connor is adept at using precise and commonplace language to convey profound and even theological ideas, and there are so many examples in this story, which you have chosen.