Yearly Archives: 2022

One of the key similarities between these two works is how each woman views marriage as a sort of trap. In “The Story of an Hour” we can see that the wife is overjoyed by the news her husband passed as seen in the line, “She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!”. This explicitly shows how the Mrs. Mallard felt ensnared by her marriage, to the point where her husband dying was the best option for her. This is also seen in the astonishment she shows when her husband shows up alive as seen in, “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease — of the joy that kills”. This shows how her sudden shift in mood was so severe that she ended up passing away.  The poem shares the same views as seen in the line, “It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed ,But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide”. These lines show how the wife felt like her life was wasting away being a stay home wife.

The theme of Emily Dicksons poem “The Wife” relates to Mrs. Mallards emotional state in “The Story of An Hour”  because in the poem “The Wife” it talks about how a woman that was married had her husband die and it was hard for her and it wasn’t easy but she had to pull her self together and move on and care for herself. In the poem The story of an hour it talks about how Mrs. Millard takes comfort when her husband died and people can see how strong she is for moving on. So as you can see the themes are pretty similar because they both talk about marriage and how to move on and stay strong. they both went along for there own needs and continued work. After Mrs. Millards husband death she was extremely sad but got over it and which it lead her to have more freedom.

The theme of the poem “The wife” by Emily Dickinson and Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour” is related; they both expressed the hidden difficulties and indescribable feelings behind being a wife. In “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard is depressed to face the death of her husband. However, as we progress through the story, we can see how Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state unfolds. She felt relieved that she would not be oppressed by marriage and regain her own freedom. She unveiled her true emotions when she was in her room alone; she would whisper to herself, “Free! Body and soul free!” “She would have no one follower her” indicates that she only feels safe to release her emotions when no one sees her.  In the poem “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson, she describes how much a woman has to give up to become a wife and will not be honored by others.  “She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife.”  It was as if getting married was all about satisfying her husband’s needs; the lady has to sacrifice and leave all her “playthings” behind; she now is no longer a girl but a wife and a woman.   “If aught she missed in her new day Of amplitude, or awe, Or first prospective, or the gold In using wore away,”  I believe here the term “abrupt” refers to the sudden transition in this woman’s life, from a relatively carefree young unmarried girl to a married woman with many responsibilities. She says nothing about what she’s amazed by and her plans for her new life. “It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known The fathoms […]

The theme in Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Wife” explains to the reader that she sacrifice a lot of things for this marriage “The playthings of her life” and the secure only keep to herself like in the deepest in the sea, not even her husband know”But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide.” Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour, tells us about her being free of the death of her husband, it also in a way to shows the reader that she’s out of the cage”There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers” nothing can stop her from being free now. From these two articles, we can see that it is not just Emily and Mrs. Mallrds in this cruel marriage, it is the worst possible century to be born in (anything before 20th century). Marriage for women is like a birdcage, and the owner(husband) dresses (expect) the wife to be the way he wanted to be.

The poem “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson relates to the story “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin because both story I feel like is dealing with freedom and also marriage. In the poem “The Wife” she is stuck between being a free woman and also being a wife as she mentioned in the poem “She rose to his requirement, dropped the playthings of her life” meaning that she is willing to up it and do whatever to become the perfect wife she is supposed to be, and in “The Story of An Hour” shes with her partner that she truly loves but once he passes away she mentions “body and soul free” she felt like a free woman after the death of her husband. Both woman are dealing with marriage form a different point of view one feel like they are required to any and everything for a man at any given moment and one feels happy that her man passed away.

The theme of the Emily Dickson poem “The Wife” relates to Mrs.Mallards emotional state in “The Story of an Hour” is because the theme I noticed in Emily Dickson’s poem was when I was reading the second group of four lines as she was explaining that if she was to miss anything at all in the new day it would feel that to her as she was not able to accomplish what she had settled for the day because she was a women who enjoyed to do work and missing a day didn’t settle right with her and basically ruined her plans. The way it relates to “The Story of an Hour” to me is because in this story Louise basically was not around the moment her husband died but the people who were are trying to figure ways to tell Louise about her husbands death so that she does not react in a certain way especially since she was not there. The way these two connect are because they both speak about in their own ways how they feel ashamed if they were to miss something big in their lives and in each of them it shows they end up not being in certain places during important times.

“The Wife” by Emily Dickinson relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “Story of An Hour” because Mrs. Mallard expresses joy in freedom from her husband dying. At first, Mrs. Mallard is washed over with emotions of grief. she later on realizes she will be living for herself in the coming years, repeating “Free! Body and soul free!”. In “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson, the quote “She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife.” shows how she or woman in general would drop their interests or what they were doing and take the role/stereotype as a woman and wife. Emily then ends with “It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide.”, which means how her “wife duties” continue to become the normality of every day living to her husband, restricted to enjoy the things she likes to do.

¨The story of an hour¨ The short story describes the series of emotions Louis Mallard endures after hearing of the death of her husband, who was believed to have died in a railroad disaster. Mrs. Mallard suffers from heart problems and therefore her sister attempts to inform her of the horrific news in a gentle way. Mrs. Mallard locks herself in her room to immediately mourn the loss of her husband. However, she begins to feel an unexpected sense of exhilaration. “Free ! Body and soul free !” is what she believes is a benefit of his death.This is an early feminist work that questions the attitudes about what women should be and how they should act. The protagonist challenges the belief in patriarchal society that women are nothing without a husband as she begins to embrace a future alone to determine her own direction and life.

Both the short story, “Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and the poem, “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson explores the lack of freedom and individuality of a married woman deeply and thoroughly, despite their limited length. During the Victorian times, to which both writings date back, a wife was more of a status symbol. She was something to acquire, something that makes a boy a man, gives him credibility. A wife was her husband’s property, whose only happiness, need and want in life was to be just that. If aught she missed in her new day Of amplitude, or awe, Or first prospective, or the gold In using wore away, It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed, This quote goes to show just how little a woman’s needs really meant. They went unmentioned and were treated as nonexistent. A wife’s only possible way to freedom and individuality was becoming widowed. “Story of an Hour” sheds light on such experience. Some could easily think that all those women who lived through such times were weak and had no concept of self. But I believe that the strength to shoulder of such burden with so much humanity, grace and endurance and then to forgive all that could only found in women.

In “The Story of an Hour” I think that Mrs. Mallard being youthful and being married to Mr. Mallard so young, seemed to be an unknown burden to her, until she heard that he had been killed in the accident. Especially in the 12th paragraph when she mentions there being “no powerful will bending hers.” She had been longing for her freedom from this marriage, and now saw that she had the world at her finger tips. I think this is where it parallels with Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Wife”. In this poem, the paragraph is  “She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife.” I think this paragraph ties in with what I spoke about above. Mrs. Mallard is thrilled at the opportunity to go live her life as a single woman, and to see what the world can give to her.  This has similar themes as the second paragraph from “The Wife”. “If aught she missed in her new day Of amplitude, or awe, Or first prospective, or the gold In using wore away.”

In the poem “The Wife” it talks about a woman who is not married, depict herself as a wife and describes what it is to be a woman and what it is to be a married woman. The story “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is about a married woman named Louise Mallard who’s husband passes away due to a railroad accident but she learns to be herself because being married made her feel as if her some of her freedom was taken away. The two main characters have similar life aspects as to feeling like a free person when not married. In the poem “The Wife” it says “She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work of woman and of wife”. The beginning of this section of the poem shows that the woman when being married takes the personal fun of her life to take on the more responsible tasks of a married woman.

In “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson, the author explains how her childhood experience was detrimentally impacted because of how young she had to throw her youth away and center her life on being a wife. She explains that being a wife includes making heavy sacrifices and leaving behind dreams and aspirations you have for yourself.  “If aught she missed in her day of amplitude, or awe, or first prospective, or the gold in using wore away”. These lines from the poem demonstrate the wife pondering about what life could have been, had she not become a wife so early.  This enhances how the decision was not something she was ready for and included sacrificing one way of life for another, and in turn this left her with questioning thoughts. “The Story of an Hour” relates to “The Wife”,  as both the women aren’t that happy with their marriage and it keeps them in a way of life they do not appreciate. The wife in “The Story of an Hour” has a realization after a brief period of grief when hearing her husband had passed away, where she was filled with a new found sense of independence, and a sense of freedom that she will now be living for herself here on out. She is almost paralyzed with emotion. Both the poem and story exemplify how women should make a life of their own, one they would be excited to live with or without someone else, before committing a lifetime to marriage.  A lot of times, marriage can come with sacrifices that draw you away from your souls true desires if you are not careful about the commitment.

It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide. From stanza 3, It was like the sea, unmentioned, developing pearls and weeds. But only to himself (life partner) is known the deep secrets they abide. This stanza could be similar to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state towards her husband’s false death in the story “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin. Dickinson and Chopin seems to have a strong emotional impact on husbands. “But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought”. (Lines 34-36) This quotation appears after Louise has gone alone to her room to deal with the news of Brently’s death. After an initial fit of tears, Louise looks out her window at the wide-open spaces below. This quotation is our first hint that Louise’s reaction to Brently’s death will be surprising and that Louise is very different from other women. Whereas most women would gaze reflectively at the sky and clouds, Louise’s gaze suggests something different, something shrewder or more active. What she sees as she gazes out the window is different from what other women would likely see after their husbands have died. Not long after this passage, Louise acknowledges the joyous feeling of independence that Brently’s death has given her. Here, at the window, the first breaths of these feelings are stirring, and her “intelligent thought” will quickly engage once again as she processes these feelings and allows herself to analyze what they mean.

In “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson, the narrator talks about her past memory during her childhood how she didn’t really have the best childhood  because she had to leave it all behind and give up her childhood in order to be the wife. She tells us that the idea of being a wife is like having to make a big sacrifice or just leaving behind things you couldn’t now do anymore more in all the possibilities you had in life after becoming the wife and having more responsibilities then to focus on yourself and your own life.  “If aught she missed in her day of amplitude, or awe, or first prospective, or the gold in using wore away”. These lines from the poem demonstrate the wife’s curiosity and questions of what could have been her potential or possibilities.  Also, it really tells us that how she  isn’t really  that happy in her marriage or getting married but it’s something that is not talked about during that time period of the story. “The Story of an Hour” relates to the theme of “The Wife” because of how both the women aren’t really that happy with their marriage and how that is a topic, during that point in history, that was not talked about. But the wife in “the story of an hour” is filled with new found hope of independence freedom from the women after hearing about her husband’s death. She repeats the word “free” and is now happy over the thought of living a full long life being free. Both the poem and story show how women felt about the role of being a wife and wondering  the possibilities and potential they had in their own life’s way behind of their lives  before becoming a wife and not having the […]

The poem “The Wife” shares a similar theme with the “Story of An Hour” as it relates to two wives. One is brand new, prepping herself for the duties of being a good wife and the other has just lost her husband and is processing his death. The excerpt from the poem that stands out the most is the last section: “It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide.” This mainly relates to the short story “Story of An Hour” as they widow is left in complete shock but after grieving feels free. She is almost ashamed to feel this way and gets choked up from admitting it. The relief the widow feels being released from her marriage is the weed and the love and happiness from the same marriage being the pearls. The new wife openly expresses throughout the entire poem how she is to lay down her life of fun and uplift the responsibilities of being a wife.

Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Wife” and the short story “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin are particularly similar when it comes to exposing the sexist gender roles expected to be followed by women in the 18th and in the 19th century, and the erasure of their self identities in detriment of their marriage life.  In the first lines of the spenserian poem by Dickinson, she says “She rose to his requirement, dropped/ The playthings of her life /To take the honorable work/ Of woman and of wife.” As an allusion to a women who has dropped her entire identity and passions after marrying, where she referred as “playthings” — or in other words, something not worth to be taken seriously. And decided to perform the greatest “work” attributed to women in that era: Being an honorable wife.  Attributes which we see on the story “The Story of an Hour” by Chopin, where after one of the characters, Mrs. Mallard’s, receives the unfortunate news about her husband passing away in a train accident, she sinks into sadness and the feeling of abandonment. Revealing then, at a first glance, a certain vulnerability expected by a married women at that time.  Further, Dickinson says “If aught she missed in her new day/ Of amplitude, or awe / Or first prospective, or the gold / In using wore away” As a way to show some certain of disappointment and fear of missing not only the days that she had left in the past and her own individuality, but fear that the feeling for the husband — who now she had to look up for — would eventually wear away. Which we can relate to Chopin’s story, on the paragraphs 13-14, when after a short grief, Mrs. Mallard’s realizes that now she was […]

In “The Story of an Hour”, by Kate Choppin, Louis Mallard has a heart problem and is therefore carefully informed of her husband’s death. Ms. Mallard does not take this news lightly, she begins to cry and heads up to her room where she can be alone. She sits in front of an open window. There she sees trees and can hear the apprenticing rain. She feels at peace and begins reaping the word “free”. For the first time in a long time, Ms. Mallard feels a sense of freedom and relief over the death of her husband. She can see the years ahead which belong to only her. But all of this is suddenly taken away from when were husband, Brently, came back. Brently had not been an accident, and Ms. Mallard dies of a heart attack brought on by happiness.  The themes in “The Story of an Hour” closely relate to “The Wife”, by Emily Dickinson. They both discuss the topic of how many women were unhappy in their marriages at the time. The poem states “She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life”. Women in marriages had to take surrender to another’s demands. In this case, when Ms. Mallard no longer had to follow someone else orders, she felt relieved and free from marriage.

Love, Poem 17: The Wife by Emily Dickinson shares the same theme of the wife who “dropped/ the playthings of her life/ to take the honorable work/ of woman  and of wife” as “The Story of an Hour.” When Mrs. Mallard’s husband is thought to have passed in an accident, her immediate reaction is grief, but when given some time she comes to her senses. The “gold/ [that has] in using  wore wore away” in “The Wife” parallels how, rather than going dull with grief, Mrs. Mallard’s eyes became keen and bright, picturing the years ahead of her with joyous disbelief. “As the sea/ develops pearl and weed” refers to how Mrs. Mallard had buried her emotions, her sense of awe and joy for the world, under layers much as an oyster buries a grain of sand in layers until nothing but a beautiful pearl is visible to the eye. She is exalted at the death of her husband, for as a widow she would have freedom from the “powerful will bending hers” (Chopin, 12).

The poem “The Wife” conveys the theme of the struggle between social norms and self willingness to be a wife in the 19th century. It starts with describing the early stage of a woman being a wife who has to “drop the playings of her life to take the honorable of women and of wife.” In “The Story of an Hour”, Louise is a perfect example that manages to do that. Her sister Josephine and Richards both believe she is a respectful wife who has already gotten rid of naivety and become totally mature. Louise does feel sad right after she hears the news of her husband’s death due to the honors she has today benefits from the marriage. However, when she goes back to the room and thinks alone, her imagination of a future living without a husband makes her feel excited and happy that never had before. By looking at the vibrant scene through the window, she realizes she sacrifices the whole world for the marriage, just as Emily Dickinson writes “Of first prospective, or the gold in using wore away.” in “The Wife”. She is ready to grasp the chance to enjoy the freedom for the rest of her life. Finally, however, the return of her husband destroys her last hope. At that time, there is no way for her to pursue freedom since her potential has been escaped under marriage. The cause of her death “lay unmentioned, as the sea develops pearl and weed.” Under the great pressure of social norms, Confirming death as an attribute to joy at least leaves her the last dignity.

The concept of independence is one of the most prominent themes in Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour and Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Wife.” For example, once the shock of knowing that her husband had died has worn off, Louise realizes that she now has the freedom to live her own life. Emily Dickinson emphasizes personal issues of independence, society, and women in her poem “The Wife.”    “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long” (Chopin). This quote demonstrates Louise’s fear of her existence, foreseeing years of monotonous, unchangeable reliance and subjugation. Brently’s death, on the other hand, leaves her free and independent, and her existence becomes suddenly worthwhile.   “If aught she missed in her new day Of amplitude, or awe, Or first prospective, or the gold In using wore away,” (Dickinson).   Mrs. Mallard was unable to be herself during her marriage, as these lines demonstrate. She wonders how her days will be now that she is self-sufficient and can do whatever she wants.

“The Story of the Hour” shows us back in the days the way society viewed women as the weak gender and marriage was very difficult for women to enjoy their life, and in the story, Mrs. Mallard was very upset because of her husband’s death. In contrast to other women who might not have the strength to move forward, after the death of her husband, she takes comfort, and we see the strength and the ability in her to pass her husband’s death. The poem “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson is connected to Mrs. Mallard’s “The Story of the Hour.” By Kate Chopin in his poem, Dickinson says that “To take the honorable work Of woman and a wife.” It means that being married is not an easy job, in another word it shows the hard work of a married woman after her husband’s death. She devotes herself to work, to take care of her needs.

How the Theme of Emily Dickson’s Poem “The Wife” Relates to Mrs. Mallard Emotional State in “The Story of An Hour.” The poem “The Wife” by Emily Dickson is about women and marriage. The poem illustrates a woman’s emotional and behavioral state as she prepares to marry. It delves into the sacrifices, adjustments, and the social perceptions associated with a woman marrying. “The story of an hour” examines a woman’s feelings following the death of her husband (Paul, 2019). Kate Chopin, the author, exemplifies the violation of a woman’s independence through her range of emotions. Both of these works are primarily concerned with marriage. More precisely, the position of a woman in marriage. This paper will discuss the feminism and inequality issues that are prevalent in “The Wife” and relate to “The Story of An Hour.” As represented in “The Wife,” a woman’s responsibility in marriage is to accommodate her husband’s wants. “She met his expectations,” the author writes. The statement depicts the guy as the dominant figure, with the woman serving only to do his bidding (Ayothi, 2017). Mrs. Mallard, on the other hand, is depicted as gaining independence as demonstrated by her feelings. She is torn between sadness and relief. The writer’s phrase, “her life would be her own,” demonstrates how powerless the woman was in marriage. Womanhood is devalued in society. The poem refers to a woman’s unmarried actions as “playthings.” Without a husband, a woman is believed to be losing her value. “In usage wore away,” the writer writes, illustrating how easily a woman’s worth is disregarded. It is evident from “The Story of An Hour” that society does not comprehend Mrs. Ballard’s plight (Paul, 2019). The poem concludes with the phrase “it lay unmentioned, as the sea,” emphasizing how ineffective the woman of no value […]

The theme of “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson relates to Miss Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of the Hour” by Kate Chopin, in that it outlines what society expects of women in her time. Miss Mallard plays the role of the dutiful wife as she hears news of her husband’s death and mourns his passing. This theme is shown in the line “To take the honorable work / Of woman and of wife.” (Dickinson) After her initial grief, she then reflects upon her newly found freedom, and her emotional state goes from sorrow to joy at having been freed from her duties as a wife. “If aught she missed in her new day” and “It lay unmentioned, as the sea” (Dickinson) shows that a woman may have hidden feelings of longing for the things that she has to give up to serve her husband, and it would not be surprising if this lead to feelings of resentment. Being liberated from such a burden would naturally lead to feelings of joy.

The theme of Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Wife” relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of An Hour” because Mrs. Mallard lived her life for him as her wife and after his passing there was grievance but also a feeling of freedom living her life not revolved around her husband. Dickinson says; “She rose to his requirement, dropped. The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife.” Dickinson’s description of what women would do for a man was exactly what Mrs. Mallard was to her husband, her life was her husband, that’s why after finding out he passed away there was a scene of freedom that she felt. After having felt freed, Dickinson  states “If aught she missed in her new day Of amplitude, or awe, Or first prospective, or the gold In using wore away.” Dickinson describes women missing their old self and this relates to Mrs. Mallard. She beggings to reminisce about her past self and missed it. Lastly, in the poem, Dickinson says ” it lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed” meaning that it never gets brought up to a woman’s husband and it’s left unsaid. Mrs. Mallard went through the same thing with not letting her husband know and it was left unsaid till she also forget about herself till he passed away and her life was hers again.  

The theme of the poem “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson talks about what she as a woman has to sacrifice “playthings In her life” when becoming a married woman. Emily does not want to get married but has to follow society norms. In “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard was in an unhappy marriage. When her husband dies her perception of life changes she finds her true self. She realized how much freedom she has “there would be no powerful will bending hers” she felt relief knowing she could live for herself and not nobody else. Emily’s poem relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state because both women are unhappy married women who had to play the role of a wife living by a man’s expectation taking away their freedom. Both stories show how women back then had to live up to society’s norm of women living up to men’s expectations. 

“a good man to find” is a story of karma and how it comes back to bite you further down the line. The grandmother falls victim to someone with a mentality much like hers. The man who holds her hostage manipulates the situation to his benefit much, like the grandmother does in order to get her family to do what she wants.

In “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson, the narrator talks about how she leaves her childhood behind in order to play the role of a wife. She implies the idea that being a wife is like making a great sacrifice of leaving behind any potential and possibilities you once had before becoming a wife. “If aught she missed in her day of amplitude, or awe, or first prospective, or the gold in using wore away”. These lines from the poem demonstrate the wife’s curiosity and questions of what could have been her potential or possibilities. Also, it shows how she is unhappy in her marriage but it’s something that is not talked about during that time period. “The Story of an Hour” relates to the theme of “The Wife” because of how both the women are unhappy in their marriage and how that is a topic, during that point in history, that was not talked about. But the wife in “the story of an hour” is filled with new found hope of independence after hearing about her husband’s death. She repeats the word “free” and is now happy over the thought of living a full long life. Both the poem and story show how women felt about the role of a wife and wondering about possibilities of life before becoming a wife. 

Gender inequality in Emily Dickinson’s “The Wife” and Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour. Emily Dickson’s poem “The Wife” demonstrates how marriage institutions perpetuate a privilege and inequality system for women. The poem depicts marriage as an institution governed by patriarchal rules, a fact that signifies gender inequality. The poem’s first line, “She rose his requirement, dropped the playthings of her life,” expounds an ideology that transitions from girlhood to becoming a woman, and then a wife prevents women from accessing self-dignity and freedom. Married women are considered their husbands’ possessions, which leaves them no choice but to comply with whatever rules their husbands impose on them. The resultant of explained ideology is a situation where women suffer emotional pressure. Emily’s poem contradicts a socially constructed ideology that marriage strengthens women with claims that it reduces women to mere men’s objects that abide blindly to her husband. Kate Chopin’s story “The Story of an Hour” illustrates the theme of inequality through Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state of mind.   The story depicts the state of a woman suffering from her husband’s restrictions and confinement to home chores. Mrs. Mallard was overjoyed after receiving information that her husband was dead. “she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment,” but then she began to feel free (Chopin n.p). She expresses her feelings for freedom by repeating the word “Free! Body and soul free!” (n.p).   Readers expect Mrs. Mallard to mourn and grieve her husband’s demise, but the contrary happens because she knows her husband’s death meant her freedom. Mrs. Mallard’s emotions did not last long because her husband had not died. This realization caused her emotional breakdown and death.

The poem itself can be related to the emotional state of Mrs. Mallard in many ways since in the first stanza it can be seen when in the story it says “It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip -sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife. When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease — of the joy that kills.” This shows that referring to her emotional situation since she, seeing her husband enter and that absolutely nothing had happened to her, is something that would be difficult for anyone to process. At that moment, she knew that her freedom was over, that she would return to her previous life, that is before she learned of the “death” of her husband Brently Mallard. It was a very complicated emotional situation for her to see that everything changed radically again in her life. The story goes “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will.” upon a fellow-creature.” This is related to the last stanza of the poem since in the recently mentioned quote she clarifies that she only lived for her husband and by her own will, as her husband was the one who would dominate everything in the relationship, preventing that she can do anything she wants.

Back then, women were oppressed and had to abide by the males in their lives’ wishes. In “The Wife” the woman is stripped of her identity when she is married off and abides by her husband’s wishes. In “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard’s husband dies and she becomes distraught with grief at first and end up mourning the loss of her husband. After she is over the initial shock and mourn, she locks herself in her room and ends up realizing that she is free of him and doesn’t have to abide by his every whim. Both characters are in similar situations in feeling trapped in their marriages and end up realizing how dim their personalities are in said marriages. In, “The Wife” she ends up mentioning giving up “the playthings of her life” in this sense she means everything that makes her, her including most of her personality and in “The Story of an Hour” she mentions on how dim her personality gets with being married off and spending the rest of her life trying to please a man that doesn’t love her and ends up realizing she has “a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.” They are both inherently sad deep down and know that marriage traps them.

The theme of Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Wife” is about how a woman loses her identity when marrying a man. In “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard is initially overcome with grief upon learning of her husband’s untimely death. She then quickly realizes that his death results in her freedom. She becomes elated at the thought of living her life just for herself and not having to do as her husband commands. In “The Wife”, Dickinson speaks of this duty of a wife having to rise to her “husband’s requirement” and letting go of her own personal interests. Dickinson further elaborates on the sacrifices a wife makes by saying that her thoughts and feelings also “lay unmentioned”. She describes how a wife could not share her mind with her husband and compares the magnitude of these thoughts and feelings to the “fathoms” of the “sea”. This provides insight to the reader of how incredibly lonely this existence was for women.

The theme of the Emily Dickinson poem “The Wife” relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour.”, in many ways.  Cleary in the time period in which both the story and poem were written, feminism was just a trembling whisper.  However these short passages exploit the experiences of Women who were undermined and emotionally & physically abused first hand.  The theme of “The Wife” relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour” by using verbiage to set a dark tone when describing their relationship to their spouse and how they are bound to their partner.  This can be directly proven from lines eleven and 12 of, “The Wife”, where Dickinson quotes “But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide.” (11-12).  Mrs. Mallard proves to be relieved by her husbands death being that there is no longer a clasp on her independence.  This can be derived from, “The Story of an Hour”, when her sister Josephine mistakes Mrs. Mallards tears of joy for tears of greif, “I beg; open the door — you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.” “Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.” (15-16).  Finally, are many other examples in which you can make this direct correlation as well., but I find that this identifies best with the relation of the Women’s emotional state in the two passages. P.S. (I capitalized Women as the stories were related to feminism and independence) 🙂

The theme of the poem “The Wife” relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour” because they are both similar. In “The Wife” talks about a lady who is married, most likely not wanting to be married, and has to live through it because it is her “duty”. In the last line of the poem, we find out that she may not be happy with her marriage and remains quiet about it. “It lay unmentioned, like the sea, Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known, The fathoms they abide.” This relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour.” because we see that Mrs. Mallard was quite happy when she heard her husband had passed and even started to whisper to herself “Free! Body and soul free!” and “free, free, free!” The keyword is whispering, maybe she didn’t have enough courage to stay it louder, but we see here that she didn’t seem too fond of being married. In both the poem and story, the women were forced into a domestic role of being the stay-at-home mom, housewife, and gender roles. Cult of Domesticity.

“The Wife,” a poem by Emily Dickson, reveals the poet’s concerns for the native feminineness in the middle-class people by articulating the gender roles of women by applying the term “wife” frequently. Patently, the poem’s persona is a woman, and conservatisms of marriage are articulated from the female perspective. Further, the theme in Dickinson’s poem tends to relate to Mallard’s passionate state in “The Story of an Hour.” In this regard, the paper discusses how the theme in Emily’s poem relates to Mallard’s work. “The Story of an Hour and The Wife” tend to focus on the female gender. Emily Dickson demonstrates the subtle feminist transformation of ladies to wives. The poet starts the first stanza by indicating that “I’m Wife.” According to Emily, females become their rulers after marriage (Dickinson 1). On the other hand, the “Story of an Hour” focuses on a female character who felt relieved after the death of her husband. After discovering that her husband escaped death, Mrs. Mallard passes through various feelings and emotions. Moreover, “The wife” and “The Story of an Hour” indicate that men exclusively dominated the marriage institution. For instance, in the poem “My Wife,” the poet indicates that once a female got married, her entire life changed completely as she had to submit to the man. Dickson believed that being a female, who comfort the notion of being a “woman,” marriage was a compulsory part of a female’s life. Mrs. Mallard’s joy in “The Story of an Hour” after discovering that her husband was no more indicates that she received freedom from the chains of being controlled by another person. As indicated by (Chopin 1), “she would live for herself,” thus showing that Mallard got liberty when the husband died. In conclusion, Emily Dickson’s The Wife and “The Story of […]

“She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife” The first four lines relate to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour” because she did not really love her husband. Mrs. Mallard probably had to be forced to be with this man because of how things were in the nineteenth century. She had to leave who she was before the marriage, her true self, to be with someone who had destroyed this. If aught she missed in her new day Of amplitude, or awe, Or first prospective, or the gold In using wore away, Mrs. Mallard was not able to be herself during her marriage. She questions how her days are going to be freeing since her husband is dead now. She thinks of her spring and summer days and how those days will be her own. She repeats to herself that she is free. This is her “if”. It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide. From the end of the story, we can see that her husband never was in the train wreck. He walks through the door and Mrs. Mallard has died of “heart disease” once she sees him. Her emotions are locked forever because she is not able to say how she really felt about her relationship. She was not able to express that she was unhappy in her marriage and did not really love her husband. Now, her emotions had sunk in the sea and turned into pearls and weeds.

In the essay “A Good Man is Hard To Find” the interior in this story would be selfishness and guilt I believe. In the story, the grandma did not want her and her family to go to Florida for one reason and that was because they were afraid of the misfit. At the being of the story, she said she had a feeling that they were going to get attacked by the misfit, and also she heard that he was going towards Florida and that was also a way of her trying to convince her son to go to Tennessee, They end up getting to an accident which led to her family being in danger three men ran across them which happen to be the misfit man she was trying to stay away from. The misfit believed that he was a good man and the grandmother knew the background and was saying he was also a good man fear never feared the grandma and I thought that was really selfish of her while her whole entire family passed away knowing they were scared the grandma passed away happy.

Flannery O’Connor has presented to the readers a piece of morale puzzle, in which no one is a true hero with perfect characteristics and committed no wrongdoings. Through the eyes of the grandmother, a self-righteous and hypocritical protagonist who guilt trips others into her own benefits, we can discover the darkness of human nature. There is no true definition for what a “good man” is meant to be and how a “good man” is supposed to act; it changes based on how one views others. We can see this portrayed by the grandmother, and a man is “good” if they hold the same moral values. The grandmother calls Red Sammy a “good man” because he trusts people and lets them charge gas on “credit” while also misses the old-time like the grandmother in which they both believe things are getting terrible and people are no longer innocent. However, the grandmother also says that she knows the Misfit is a “good man” at heart, and he will not shoot a lady when she knows that she is the only one left of the family and everyone else has been shot. She was careless of other family members and was only worried about herself and her lady’s appearances, as we know that even if she had on a “navy straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim,” anyone who found her dead on the highway would know she was a lady. The grandmother desperately calls the Misfit a “good man,” claiming that he does not have “common blood” she does so out of selfishness, wanting to skew the Misfit into having the same moral code as she does. In contrast, the Misfit has enough recognition of himself that he knows he “ain’t a good man,” but also not […]

I believe that the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor is really telling the story of how hard it is to change one’s way of thinking. In the story, one of the main characters, the Grandmother is a beyond shallow, ignorant and judgmental, selfish woman. She remains that way even when coming face to face with death itself. She looks a convicted felon, whose crimes she is aware of, and believes that he is still inherently good solely based on his noble background. Even after the Misfit orders the death of her own son, daughter in law and grandchildren, she still insists on him being good. Her faulty outlook on the world is so deeply implemented, that not even a situation so stressful can overrule it. Not even the possibility of death can turn her into a “good” or at least “better” person.

`Internally this story is about one’s morality and how it changes based on various internal and external factors. This can mainly be seen in the grandmother as a character. While she is not a literal evil person, she carried some evil beliefs which caused her to be seen as a bad person. It is plausible to say she internally feels this as she dresses above her class to seem more eloquent. This also plays into the fact that one’s morality is not governed by looks. This is prominently seen with the grandmother’s encounter with the Misfit. She incorrectly assumes he is a good person based on his looks even though he was already known as a vicious killer. One aspect about morality is that one’s ideals can change how they personally view themselves. This is seen in the Misfit did not see himself as culpable for his own actions. These characters are polar opposites of each other.

The interior of O’Conner’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is truly terrifying. Like in most stories foreshadowing can be seen when the grandmother warns her son about going to Florida because of the Misfit, though in suspenseful horror fashion he ignores her and they go there anyway. What can be taken away from this story is a lesson of what can happen when a person is bullheaded and thinks that they are correct. Examples are the grandmother being embarrassed that she was wrong and her son for not listening in the first place regardless of the chances of actually passing the Misfit by. I feel akin to Stephan Gresham’s point made in his essay about the tale that this story is much more frightening in the imagination of the reader regarding what is not shown than what actually is. This is a story that shows anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

It’s time for a family trip of some kind, and there’s a disagreement in the family about where to go. Bailey wants to take his family, (i.e., his wife, baby, and two kids, John Wesley and June Star), to Florida. His mother, called simply “the grandmother,” doesn’t want to go there.The Grandmother shows her nostalgia for what she sees as a simpler and better time. Her reflection—that she should have married the man who died rich off Coca-Cola stock—makes it clear that worldly concerns are more important to her than spiritual ones (or even ideas of romantic love). The Grandmother once again shows the racism inherent in her worldview and longing for the “Old South,” as she portrays the black “boy” in the story as just a simple and comic figure. The story ends with him telling his cronies, who’ve returned from shooting the others, to dump her body with the rest. “She would’ve been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life,” he says.

In the story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by O’Connor I believe that the interior part of the story is about how a grandmother of the family has brought evil upon all of them and tries to convince the family to start heading towards Tennessee for a get away break instead of allowing them to go to Florida and her reason for them not to go to Florida is because their was a article she has read about convicts going to Florida and she does not want her family to get into trouble. While they are on the way to their destination the grandma realizes that they could be heading the wrong way and a few moments after they are ambushed by three men who get out of a car but the Grandma thinks she realizes one of them and that they are trying to go after her whenever they have the chance so to try and stop it they try to disguise the grandma in different suits so that no one realizes her or has any idea.

In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor tries to connect readers with the true meaning of Christianity through death and grace. The author shows how grace is an important aspect of  Christian theology. The author named the place where the party took a detour ‘Grace’ to connect the theme of grace in Christian theory. Christians in modern-day society misplace their grace on earthly material that amounts to suffering. The author expounds on the latter ideology using Grandmother, who lured the party to take a detour to Tennessee from Florida. Unknown to the grandmother, the Misfit gang invested the detour route. Even though the grandmother wanted to save guard her daughters from the gang, she subjected them to the gang’s hands. At the story’s beginning, the grandmother perceives herself as a superior person. She prejudiced  Misfit as an evil person from the story she leads in the newspaper. The latter ideology changed when she encountered Misfit. In summary, the story illustrates that Extraordinary situations (Grandmother’s encounter with Misfit) can help a person understand the true meaning of grace.

In my opinion, the story in its interior refers to the intension of the story. In the text, “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind…Now look here, Bailey,” she said, “see here, read this,” and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head…Just you read it. I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that a loose in it”. At the beginning of the story, the grandmother uses a newspaper story of an escaped convict heading to Florida to try to convince her son, Bailey, to go to Tennessee. Whether she uses fear or guilt, her main goal stands as getting to Tennessee. However, when Bailey refuses to budge on altering the trip’s course, she willingly goes along, revealing that she never truly feared they’d run into the criminal known as The Misfit.

I think in its interior, this story is a complex psychological evaluation of the Grandmother character, and what she represents. She is very stubborn and stuck in the ways of the past. It also seems like she literally sees people as black and white. The racist story about the watermelon and talking about how the little boy not wearing pants was telling of her feelings about black people. She also assumes because the Misfit is a handsome white boy, that he must come from a good family background. And that he’s probably a good christian and prays and things like that. In the end it’s what got them all killed. She ended up being her own worst enemy, and that parallels with the Misfits life story as well. He was falsely accused of a crime, went to prison, then started actually committing crimes. I think that’s a lot of the interior of this story

The Lecture “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor is about the suspense and selfishness the grandmother conveys when she convinces her family to go on a trip to Tennessee instead of Florida just for her own interests. The way she convinced them to take a trip to Tennessee is by telling them that the Misfit had escaped the penitentiary. In the lecture it states “Then, in what ends up being a fatal act of selfishness she brings her cat along on the trip even though she knows Bailey doesn’t like to travel with the cat”. The grandmother has such a big ego that anything she does not want to happen, she will get an idea on how to avoid it. Also, in the lecture it says “Along the way she regales them with a story from her youth when she was courted by Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden. She would have done well to marry him, she says, because he became a very rich man. Through the Grandmother ’s nonstop chatter we see how superficial, small-minded, ignorant, hypocritical, and self-satisfied she is”.

This story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” in its interior is about suspense and karma. The suspense is all in how he keeps the old woman on her toes wondering if she will live or die. He is toying with her the whole time as if attempting to show a false sense of a moral dilemma about whether he would kill her or not, knowing full well the whole time she was dead from the start as soon as she crossed his path. The karma is in how the old lady’s manipulative words finally didn’t get her what she wanted and actually ended with her family dying because of her letting it slip that she recognized him as the misfit. It was also a lesson to show the old lady not to be so judgemental and in the end that judgement bites her in the butt and at the last moment she finally sees that judging people like she has was wrong and sees him as someone as her own child just gone down the wrong path.

In his book Poetics, Aristotle makes a distinction between poetry and history. There is a strong contrast between the past and present tense in this passage. For these reasons, Aristotle believes that poetry is preferable to history. To begin, he argues that poetry is superior to history and philosophy since it is the earliest form of writing. To that end, he writes, “While history informs us about what has occurred, poetry informs us about what might occur in the future.” He continues by asserting that poetry is universal, whereas history is particular. Within its own confines, poetry can reveal a great deal about history and philosophy. Poetry encompasses the abstract and the essence of enlightenment, whereas history merely imparts information through historical events. As a result, poetry consistently excels and surpasses history. The historian asserts that he is more persuasive because he uses historical examples to teach practical ideals. Poets, by virtue of their dual roles, are both philosophers and historians (Carli, 304). He employs both perception and illustration. This means that poetry can entice readers by illustrating what should occur rather than what has occurred or will occur. For instance, a poetry can assist readers in learning about values and ethics.  Aristotle asserted that poetry is universal. Aristotle defined poetry as significant because it deals with universal experiences shared by people of various races, sexes, faiths, locations, and languages. Poetry has the potential to touch the hearts and minds of people of all ages. This was not the case throughout history, when just a small number of people belonging to a certain race and geographical location were directly touched by the events depicted. Unlike history, which is primarily concerned with the events themselves, poetry is concerned with the people who lived through them, their sentiments, hopes and fears, joys […]

The story is gothic in nature and centers on The Misfit and his grandma. The Misfit is unique among the characters in that he is passionate, whilst the rest are passive (O’Connor 07). At the conclusion of the story, the reader is given the opportunity to read the discussion between The Misfit and his grandma. One thing is certain: the grandma was a hypocrite who believed in the virtues. The grandma believed that whatever she did was right and that she was teaching her children the Lord’s ways. However, with closer examination of her jabber, it becomes clear that she was a hypocrite, superficial, and flawed woman. By contrast, the Misfit lacked faith and was overwhelmed by his own pain and the suffering of others as a result of secular and divine laws’ injustices (O’Connor 09). When The Misfit is labeled as the lone person who understands the hardship of finding a good man, the story’s gothic element is revealed.  Notably, despite their disparate personalities, both the grandmother and The Misfit are products of grace. There is a blurring of what is good caused by the grandmother’s constant belief that everything is wonderful, which makes it difficult to discern what is not good. Both the grandmother and the Misfit have several flaws, have fallen into sin, and are fundamentally defective; nonetheless, they are both recipients of redemption, since all individuals are rescued by grace. The story demonstrates that only God determines who will enter heaven, which indicates that even people who commit sin can enter paradise as a result of God’s rescuing love. The grandma and the Misfit do not deserve grace for their awful characteristics, yet God chooses them both, conveying the readers that even bad people have a chance to enter heaven via God’s grace.

In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the depth or interior of the story is centralized around the grandmother and her ways of life. She preaches the whole time of how people were better back in the day but fails realize she is apart of the problem. She sees people in a different light than of herself and until the end she tries to portray this holy woman of god persona. She believes that appearances should be the entire basis of what or how someone should be perceived inside. She tells the misfit that he looks like a good man and thus should deep down be one. She is also certain that he would never kill a lady and tries to use this as protection for herself and never once tries to do the same for the others. Outside of the struggles the family is going through the main one purpose of the story is to shine light on the ugliness inside of the grandmother.

In its “interior”, I feel that “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is about how the absence of “bad” or “evil” doesn’t necessarily make a person “good”. O’Connor introduces us to several characters, all of whom are very unlikeable. Bailey seems always annoyed, his wife doesn’t have much personality and both of their children are bratty and rude. The grandmother, however, is the one that stands out as having the attributes that are commonly considered as belonging to someone who is “good”. She dresses well, she believes in Jesus, she’s old, and she pretends to care for her grandchildren’s well-being. While none of these characters is actually too awful, none has any qualities that would indicate they were a good human being. I think O’Connor intentionally created these characters to be relatable to the reader, not necessarily that we personally identify with them, but in the sense that we all know people like each of these characters. We don’t consider them to be bad people, we might even subconsciously consider them to be good people if they are wealthy, religious, or take care of themselves physically. We especially don’t consider them to be bad when there is always the bad guy, or “Misfit”, to whom we can compare them.

The story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by O’Connor may seem like a unusual tragedy storytelling at its first glance — a story about a cruel serial killer that in a pitiless acts decided to take away the lives of a family of six members, without any apparent motivation besides disregard for their existence. However, when diving deep into the narrative and analyzing not only the prior events before the tragedy but also every character — from the grandmother to the children — we realize that the short novel is much more about the duality of the human kind more than anything else.  The reason for that observation is based mostly, but not only, on the grandmother’s character. Throughout the whole story she shows herself as a racist, selfish, shallow and manipulative person that still believes that being christian makes her inherently good individual. On the other side, Misfits — the serial killer — can be seen as a calm, rational and self aware figure, despite his lack of empathy for human life. One may argue that in a different occasion, he could be a good person.  The “interior” on this novel is to show that despite the antagonist’s brutal acts towards that family, being “good” or “bad” is a condition that goes beyond that, in places that we are yet to discover inside the human mind. 

In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor, to my interpretation, the meaning of the story on an interior level, is to enhance the beauty and the madness within the world we live in, in a way deemed cruel and unfortunate to the perception of the average reader. Beneath the surface, this literature represents the depth behind how perspective is relative. Obviously, an entire family being murdered does not represent the beauty of life to many; however, to The Misfit, the madness that he participates in throughout his life is part of the “beauty” of being a human who has never chosen to embrace the light of life. On the contrary, to the family, things such as the beautiful white house with “hidden silver” the grandmother and children wanted to see, and the land on the drive there, the nice traveling weather, are representations of beauty in life. Perspective is relative as you can see, relative to your past, upbringing, your environment, your surroundings, morals, etc. Similarly, the perspective of the grandmother initially, shifts by the end of the story. Originally, she seems selfish and hypocritical, naive to the broadness of what makes the world what is was at that point. Toward the end, you begin to feel empathy for her, as she is trying to reassure The Misfit he is a good person. Why? Her life is in danger and her family’s been killed. The beauty in the madness of that situation is you see how life, during good and bad, evokes various parts of your being, as this did for her, showing how perspective is relative to sources only available through the lens of the interpreter at the very moment. Good and evil are purely human concepts developed as a way for us to compare one another, “A Good […]

In the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” O’Connor shows the elements of suspense in it will be transferred from its surface to its interior, for example, the Grandmother at first you might think she’s a regular woman (grandmother) but later as the story goes on, things start to show up, that she’s very selfish, she will manipulating the family to get what she wants. At first, she forces Bailey(her son) to change the trip from Florida to Tennessee with news of “Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit… did to these people” and cries about it that she wouldn’t let her children go there. Later on the trip, she knows Bailey hate traveling with a cat but she still brought with it on, also the dress she dressed very fancy, it ironic for me because it just trips why do you dress up like this, and later she explained that if she ends up dead on the road, people would find her will know she was a lady, which brings an idea for me to think, she probably means even if she is dead on the road if people find her they will know she was a lady(in a pure way, let people think she’s kind, innocent, and friendly). Baily her son, didn’t talk much in the story probably just sick and tired of his mother, just like a doll to her.

O’Connor states that in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”,  readers “should know what is going to happen in this story so that the element of suspense in it will be transferred from its surface to its interior”. If you know what happens in the story, then upon reading it you can see clear signs of foreshadowing that hints at how the story will end. The first sign of foreshadowing has to do with how the grandmother was dressed. She was described as being elegantly dressed and even mentions how if she were to die she would still keep her “ladylike” appearances. The grandmother unintentionally prepares herself for the exact incident she mentions. Another sign of foreshadowing is when they notice a graveyard fenced in on a hill where a plantation used to be. The grandmother refers to it as a “family graveyard” and has “five or six graves”, one for each family member. The graveyard represents the family and their impending death.  

I believe that “A Good Man is Hard to Find” interior is about the way people change their ways when put in a dangerous situations. From the beginning of the story, we notice that the grandma is a very selfish and manipulating lady. She tries to convince her family to go to Tennessee instead of Florida by telling them that there is a Misfit on the loose and it would be very dangerous to go to Florida because of it. And that Tennessee could be a great learning experience for the kids. On the trip, they encounter the Misfit and his guys and the family is slowly killed one by one. The grandmother is the last to be killed but before she is, she tried to convince the misfit to not kill her by telling him he is a good man. The misfit states “she would have been a good women..if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” This quotes implies that the grandmother only change her ways from a selfish, hypocritical, and manipulating woman to a Christian faith and “kind” woman when she is put in a violent situation. Which ties to the title that “a good man is hard to find”.

In the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor the “interior” the author speaks of means that the character in her story, the grandmother whos a religious person but also very much racist who constantly passes judgment on others and an annoying character overall, and also the Misfit who’s a criminal and an ignorant man who believed the world punished him from doing what they (society) thought was wrong because he didn’t believe there was a right or wrong thing to do. Although these characters are described differently they’re both similar in a way because both of these characters at the end try to find mercy and not for one other but for themselves, The grandmother before dying had a self-reflection of her evil actions and so did the Misfit after killing the grandmother, he also came to a self-reflection that the grandmother was actually a good person and not everyone was unkind, The “interior” meaning was that anyone can change and these two characters in the story were a good example of two horrible characters have a self-reflection toward the end of the story.

In the essay about suspense in her story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” O’Connor writes that readers, like the ancient Greek viewers of tragedy, “should know what is going to happen in this story so that the element of suspense in it will be transferred from its surface to its interior.” We know what the story is about on the surface. What do you feel the story is about in its “interior?” I believe that the author, in saying that allowing the reader to know what’s going to happen in the story enables them to take the story from the surface to the interior is alluding to dramatic device in writing. The use of this device, I believe, allows the reader to not just become consumed with the one element of suspense. Rather, the reader, in already knowing the outcome, can shift their focus to other themes the author is trying to convey in their work- such as family dynamics, the Grandmother’s manipulative behavior, and the Misfits perception of life. The Grandmother, being the main character of the story, uses her words wisely in order to gain what she wants from others, acting as a puppeteer so to speak.  Her manipulative behavior ends up being her demise.  As the Misfit enters the story, it is difficult to get much of a read on him.  As the Grandmother tries to penetrate the emotional wall he puts up using statements about religious beliefs and questions about his past, ultimately trying to tie it into relating to him which gets her killed.  The Misfit saw past that.  The quote “Daddy was a card himself,” The Misfit said. “You couldn’t put anything over on him. He never got in trouble with the Authorities though. Just had the knack of handling them.” [103-106], […]

The grandmother and Misfit in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” live by moral rules that influence their decisions, behaviors, and perceptions. The grandmother’s moral code is based on the qualities she feels define as “good” individuals. At the same time, she deceives her family on a regular basis and has only a rudimentary understanding of the world around her. The Misfit, on the other hand, follows a strict and consistent moral code. He also has real skepticism about religion. Unlike the grandma, who accepts faith without inquiry and without thought, the Misfit questions religious beliefs and considers how he should follow or not follow them. We know what the story is about on the surface. What do you feel the story is about in its “interior? The “interior” of the narrative, in my opinion, is about differences. Because each character in the novel has unique qualities, attitudes, and beliefs, I say differences. Every character in the novel, I believe, has a unique way of acting and thinking about things.  

In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O Conner the interior of this story is karma in a way because of how the grandmother was selfish and did anything to get what she wanted. When she didn’t get what she wanted she would be difficult to the people around her. She was self centered and didn’t care about anyone else other but her self, She got her karma when her family was killed due to her being difficult . In the end the grandmother saw that being this way and being selfish got her to this point with no one in her family. This led to the point of her and the misfit, where she tries to convince the misfit that he is a good person and should spare her life. This is an example of her manipulation to get her to live more longer. Death is a test of good faith but it seems the grandmother doesn’t have it.

In the story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by O’Connor. The interior is about suspense and humor. The suspense is built around the old lady’s survival from the killing of the misfit. The misfit scares the old lady causing her to lose faith in believing she will survive. She begins to persuade him to let her live but the opposite of what she expected happened. The old lady has this self-righteous and manipulating humor. She decides to manipulate her son into not traveling to Florida by trying to act like it’s for the safety of the family. When in reality she just wanted to travel to visit family in Tennessee. She uses logic when using fear and guilt to try and convince her son to do what she wants. The old lady selfish manipulated ways caused her family to go on a detour that led them to death and her in the hands of the misfit. The old lady tries to manipulate everyone around her to get what she wants but in the end, it does not work with the misfit.   

In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, Grandma is a lady with classical taste. She is older, but energetic and logical, a wonderful companion for Mr. Bailey’s children. She appreciates life and life by presenting herself as a lady in a beautiful dress. She has an instinct for pride and superiority, as she always retains her precious grace. When traveling as a family, the grandmothers talked and entertained their grandchildren with games and jokes. Her grandchildren were rude to her. There were many situations where there were negative behaviors and comments. This grandmother is also a dramatic storyteller; she tells the children that when she tells them the story they would shut up. She tells of her own story, her story of her love with Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden of Georgia, who brought her watermelon on Saturday when a Negro ate it. Grandma laughs because she thinks he’s funny but the kids don’t like him. It is noted that she had an incredibly high ego and boasted of being superior to others, she is a very negative person, however, neither her pride nor her superiority instinct could not save her from the sad end she had.

As O’Connor says, readers “should know what is going to happen in this story so that the element of suspense in it will be transferred from its surface to its interior.” Her intent is to use the story as an instrument of Christian faith, to show the faith of the grandmother and the good-evil dichotomy. However, my thoughts go more along the lines of Stephan Gresham in that I see the piece only in an agnostic light. The malicious stranger is simply that, evil in the world. The grandmother’s epiphany and preaching only showed how useless her faith was, in the end. O’Conner herself makes the point that “it is the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially.” One has to question though, what good it is if the grandmother was only able to reach her epiphany at the end of her life, up until which she had spent her time ignorant, and manipulating those around her for her own selfish desires. O’Conner ends with foreshadowing that the grandmother was able to touch the heart of the Misfit, but the cynic in me believes that it was just a drop off the back of the malicious stranger.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a short story about a family from the south. They’re on their way to Florida but run into some conflict on the way. The character we are going to focus on is the grandmother. But throughout the story, we see what each character thinks a good man is to them, or what it means to be a good man. O’Connor mirrors her perspectives on society through all of the characters in the story. The grandmother is a selfish person and when the Misfits took them away, she only cared about herself, she is kind of self-centered. When we meet Sammy’s character, he believes he is a good person because he lets some strangers buy gas on credit. The Misfit is a character that is supposed to be bad but is more aware (I guess you can say) than the other characters in the story. He’s bad because he’s a serial killer, but he knows right from wrong, he’s passionate and self-aware. He’s not fake (I guess you can say) like the other characters. In the lecture “Where Is the Goodness?” in activity 4 on page 9 it shows the character chart. So there is a little bit of each type of person in the story I’d say and this is what O’Connor wanted to show us. So overall I believe the story on its interior is just to show us how some people are in society through and it shows in the characters in the story.  

In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the author uses an egocentric character of the grandmother; the grandmother’s superficiality is somehow true for most of us who profess to be Christians. She’s paying lip service to the superficial notion of being Christians, however not treating it as seriously as the Misfit does. In addition, the grandmother’s hypocrisy, self-entitlement, and futility made that clear by a touch comparable to a bit of hard luck, also she never had a clue about life and things she pretended to care about the most. The age dynamic and social and cultural gap is perfectly investigated during the whole family’s ordeal. And the family was unequipped in every aspect to deal with the darkness of life outside their illusory place of comfort, and security. Great thing Flannery archived by making the Misfit utterly unlikeable, despite his effort to believe and portray himself as a decent man. Only someone as manipulative as the grandmother would manipulate him.

This story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” in its interior is about suspense and karma. The suspense is all in how he keeps the old woman on her toes wondering if she will live or die. He is toying with her the whole time as if attempting to show a false sense of a moral dilemma about whether he would kill her or not, knowing full well the whole time she was dead from the start as soon as she crossed his path. The karma is in how the old lady’s manipulative words finally didn’t get her what she wanted and actually ended with her family dying because of her letting it slip that she recognized him as the misfit. It was also a lesson to show the old lady not to be so judgemental and in the end that judgement bites her in the butt and at the last moment she finally sees that judging people like she has was wrong and sees him as someone as her own child just gone down the wrong path.

The interior of the story is about the devastation of a whole family brought by the grandmother. Looking at the consequence, the cause of death for six family members is thought to be attributed to Misfit. Obviously, Misfit plays a villain role in the story who doesn’t have any good. But if we compare him with the grandmother, we will find out there are many similarities between them. They both lacked the love and care from the family. Misfit, in a extreme way, murders his father. The grandmother, in a different way, decides to tease them after she fails to persuade them to go to Tennessee. Even though she clearly knows the plantation is in Tennessee instead of Georgia, she lies to the kids, making them not have a good time. By doing so, not only she can let the family feel disappointment going to Florida, but also can make them regret not going to Tennessee. However, after they have a car accident, her plan is destroyed. Dramastically, even when she knows Misfit is killing his family, she just says he should pray but never tells him how to do that or how he can be a good man. Until the moment she is being killed, she suddenly shows the greatness of motherhood, which is considered a good characteristic. However, it is too late for her to be good. 

In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’ Connor, the interior story is the conflict between the grandmother and The Misfit. The grandmother is narrow-minded, superficial, manipulative, and thinks of nobody else’s desires besides her own. Therefore, she spends most of the story manipulating the family to concede to her desires. Things such as going to Tenessee instead of Florida for the family vacation and visiting an old house she remembered growing up are examples of this behavior. The Misfit is a character mentioned throughout the text as an evil criminal that, on the surface, should be a classic good vs. evil story. Instead, what happens is he brings a momentary instance of redemption for the grandmother as she nears the final moments of her life. She attempts to comfort The Misfit with a touch on the shoulder during a moment of vulnerability and says, “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” (O’Connor par. 135). The Misfit immediately shoots her when he is touched, and afterward, he says, “She would of been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” (par. 139) Therefore, the tragedy in the interior is that it took a very violent and tragic event to force her into showing some compassion for someone other than herself.

The element of suspense in the story of O’Connor “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is definitely present in its interior. It is not just a story about a family of six with Grandmother presented as evil. Although it is indeed true that neither her intellect nor grace is comparable to that of Misfit, there is something special about her that makes her not solely a negative character (O’Connor 97). This special lies not on the surface but in the interior of the story, on the level that can be called Divine and invisible for a superficial reader. The Christian view of the world makes the story deeper and leaves this element of suspense after the final encounter of the Grandmother and Misfit. The seconds before her death, she opens her heart for compassion and thus, not only demonstrates this ‘good heart’ but appears to influence Misfit as well. At the end of the narrative, he admits that the violence does not give him pleasure. As O’Connor states herself, the violence in her story is a way to make the characters ready to accept their moment of grace (98). The suspense of the story remains in the possible beginning of Misfit’s transformation. Moreover, it is not only about Misfit as a character but about humanity as a whole. Therefore, the suspense lies in the inner self of the Grandmother, and its ability to affect other antagonists and the world.

Flannery O’Connor tries to paint a picture depicting the possibility of divine grace in a fight between good and evil. The story revolves around a family planning a tour to Florida, with the grandmother being the main character. She preferred going to Tennessee, but the family did not change their plans even after informing them of the Misfit’s gang in Florida. In many instances, the grandmother applied the term “good” indiscriminately, clouding the definition of a good man. She does this continuously until the term entirely loses its meaning.  In Red Sammy’s incident, we see her definition of “good” to include blind faith, poor judgment, and gullibility. Sammy asks her why she let two strangers charge their gasoline after angrily protesting people’s general untrustworthiness. Despite the obvious situation that he had been defrauded, the grandmother replied that he did it because he is a “good man.” The grandmother later recognizes the Misfit and asks him if he would shoot a lady; the fact that he never replies that he would not denotes that he does not subscribe to the same moral code as she does. It was that very recognition that consequently led to the whole family’s death. Nevertheless, the grandmother proceeds to call him a good man, denoting some form of underlying value that the Misfit would not want to deny. In this incident, she defines “good” as asymmetrical, revealing her claim that he does not have “common blood” with her. Succinctly, the grandmother was of a good heart, which compelled her to judge others as good despite the situation. Good people eventually get hurt by the evil people in society as we see grandmother continuously clinging to her superficial definition of good. O’Connor depicts how a person of the good heart may be taken advantage of by people […]

some timeless human experiences that I have seen the character deal with is death, people dying from left to right it’s like a domino effect. also, him being very stubborn not wanting to take any advice from anyone because he is the leader sometimes you have to put your pride aside and things could eventually work out but being hard-headed and having pride can just cause a negative impact on your life just like how this character is dealing with.

It defines history as the narrative of a particular event occurring at a particular time for a particular person or group while literature is the narrative of what is common in human experience.He believes in power, and when his father died, he went alone to seek justice with King Lai and his people, and for personal reasons. He announced the death of the man who killed King Lai. He realizes that he is the one he is looking for, and his fate is sealed.Oedipus found out that was found to kill his father and marry his mother which blinded him and made him feel a type of way.  

What behaviors do you find in your reading of Oedipus the King? In the reading of Oedipus, you can see one of the pride behaviors between Oedipus and Jocasta because both of them tries to escape the prophecy but in the end, Oedipus marrying his mother(wife having 4 kids ) accidentally kills this father without knowing it, as Oedipus Jocasta tries to escape it by telling the shepherd to abandon Oedipus and killing it. But the shepherd does what Jocata which also results in the prophecy coming true, when trying to escape from fate but resulting in happing. Also, fate if Oedipus didn’t listen to the prophecy and left Corinth, fate won’t happen that quickly or in a way that the prophecy can be false. In the end, Jocasta kills herself from knowing the truth and so did Oedipus blind himself(in a way to not see the horror in his life again).

When I think of the story of “Oedipus the King”, by Aristotle is clear to me that there is a true sense of justice against all odds being stacked against him. A person trying to outrun or avoid what they think is an ill fate is timeless. Whether it be a child being told what they will do for a living or who they will marry. Those that have fled their country of birth to another for the freedom of escaping their fate if they stayed. Another could be someone that thought they were doing the right thing like the shepherd that took Oedipus away only to find out they did a terrible wrong in doing so. Many a person has tried to do what they thought was right only to have it bite them back at the end of things. Lastly just like any good parent regardless of the bad things that they have done or that have happened to them, the only thing Oedipus cared about at the end was not himself but for his children.

A timeless event that can be seen in Oedipus is one’s pride leading them to their downfall. This can be seen in many leaders in the history of the world. One such leader was Napoleon. His own pride within the French army caused him to thin out his forces leading to his defeat. Another ruler this can be seen in is Hitler and his attempted invasion of Russia. He believed in himself so much that he did not take into account the different terrain and climate of said country. This led to the eventual break down of the German army and his eventual retreat out of Russia. Another event often seen is rulers trying to protect their own power. The best example of this is during campaign time when politicians slander each other in order to look more appealing to voters. They let go of their morals in order to stay in charge.  

I think that even today, many people struggle taking advice and listening to others. Whether it’s pride, mistrust, or being blinded by something want/love, I think we all struggle listening to what other people have to say about our lives and our mistakes.

When Aristotle writes that “poetry is a higher form than history.” to me means that poetry gives you a better understanding of history and explains the experiences that have happened and others have gone through. The timeless human experiences and behaviors that I notice in the reading Oediupus The King is that you notice a lot of different problems going on at once in the reading as it begins with Oedipus killing his own father then end up marrying his own mother who he has no idea is his mother till it later is revealed to him then it continues on to Oedipus accusing Creon for Laius’s death, so all at one you start to notice the amount of situations these characters deal with especially amongst each other when they do not really have true evidence on why some of them have problems with each other, for example Oedipus is just making his own claim that Creon killed Laius but he doesn’t have any true evidence to really support that Creon is the reason to the killing.

I believe that a truly universal aspect of the characters in the ancient Greek tragedy, “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles is their relationship with the gods. Obviously, in our modern society most people are not as hung up on God’s wrath but, even with the spread of atheism, people still need an outer force to blame things on and hope for things from. Whether that’s a deity, energies, forces, fate, chance or destiny, the majority believes that there is something else in charge of reality as we know it. Most people are still dependent on something else. Which in a way, understandable because after a certain amount of experience, one must admit that the way life works, the people we meet and the things we live through cannot be all for nothing.

One of the timeless behaviors that I get in the book is with regards the answer that Freudian gives to Allan Arlow and that I find excellent and completely satisfying. Jocasta informs Oedipus that a man always has a dream of having his father killed and then getting the chance of marrying his mother. What she says indeed happens on very many occasions as we see evident in the book (Grene 73). The other fascinating behavior is the issue of deep fears of the patriarchal society that calls for great attention . In such an instance, the son might has his father killed or kill him by himself and end up marrying his wife. The son is then set to enjoy the privileges that the father initially wanted, and after the father’s death, all the roles are assumed by him. Then finally, we see the mundane fear that the book claims is in every one of us.

Timeless human experiences or behaviors that I found in my reading of Oedipus the King is the fear of not being in control. I think this is a big one because multiple times does the story goes on about fate, it is deeply connected within it. Fear of not being in control, the fear of higher beings being in control of what happens and what is your destiny, your “fate”, I think this is the timeless human behavior that is being interpreted from this reading. The reading of Oedipus the King’s characters shows that everyone faces their fate regardless of what they attempt to do, worsening it if continued to try and cheat fate to attempt to change it or mold it to their liking. Even Oedipus’s fate is already predetermined by the God’s, higher beings in the reading to commit. Throughout the reading, however, Oedipus as well attempts to change his fate, but his stubborn nature pushes him more towards his downfall.

When Aristotle has written that “poetry is a higher form than history.” He qualifies that history is the story of a particular event that happens at a particular time to a particular person or group, while literature is the story of what is universal in the human experience. I agree with this because in poetry the person shows more emotion in ways of rhyme. In the reading of Oedipus the King there were signs of emotions that are still carried out to this day such as revenge and other things that are carried out in our society. In lines 119 ceron says something that relates to the only way to make the empire great is with spilling blood of the people that have done bad to us, meaning revenge. Also oedipus found out that was found to kill his father and marry his mother which that blinded him and made him feel a type of way. this happens in our society where people find crazy news and it changes them.

Aristotle has written that “poetry is a higher form than history.” He qualifies that history is the story of a particular event that happens at a particular time to a particular person or group, while literature is the story of what is universal in the human experience. After reading Oedipus the king, its clear to see he couldn’t escape his own destiny. During this time, they believed that everyone’s fates were determined from birth and fates were unalterable. Oedipus is the protagonist and his fate, the antagonist. When Oedipus learned of his fate, he left Corinth after he heard what the prophecy directed to Polybus, the man he thought was his biological father. It was said that one day he would kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus eager to know the truth was unable to control what was given at birth for him. He believed he was powerful and when his father died, he set out with his own free will to find justice for King Laius, for the people of his land and his own personal reasons. He proclaimed death upon the man that killed King Laius. His fate was defined when he realized the man, he was searching for was himself.

In the reading of “Oedipus the King”, timeless human experiences or behaviors I found was since birth Oedipus didn’t know about his real parents and he ended up killing his father and marrying his mother (Jocasta) who he didn’t know about it till it was revealed after. This led to Oedipus accusing Creon of Laius’s death and planning his exile or death, to Jocasta killing herself after finding out the truth that she’s Oedipus mother and wife on her own, and lastly, Oedipus dying from all the misfortune he’s had and from my take of the Chorus saying “he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain.” (1728). Oedipus’s real father Laius and Jocasta sent their kid to be killed after a prophet told them that their baby will kill him and marry his mother, even after trying to change destiny, it still happening, proceeding to show that you can’t always force a change on an incident because it’ll end up happening again. Changing the outcome also caused plenty of people to get hurt in the process.

Throughout the story of “Oedipus the King” the king suffers from his timeless human experience as he impulsively blinds himself. Oedipus learns of the truths behind his parents and of his children and in his shame he cannot bare to look at what he has done. With his impulsive decision he found a permanent solution for his shame and in turn later regretted it as he wanted his children back in his arms. As a consequence, he is forced to let go of his children after all, in order to live outside of Thebes away from the horrors bestowed upon him. Creon also demonstrates a timeless behavior as he is gracious towards Oedipus and tries to show him that he was a decent man before the recent events and will continue to be a decent man after them. Creon says to Oedipus “I gave you this because I knew from old days how you loved them as I see now.” Crean feels for Oedipus and his act of pity will not be forgotten.

                   It is an incontestable fact that, despite years of human history and societies, some behaviors and experiences patterns are still intrinsic in our lifestyles and still are a huge part of who we are as individuals, or as a community. Several of these timeless patterns can be encountered in the reading “Oedipus the King”, such as the community’s respect towards its social hierarchy, and the feeling of revenge.                     In the lines 254 to 260, Oedipus says: “But if you shall keep silence, if perhaps some one of you, to shield a guilty friend, some one of you, to shield reject my words – hear what I shall do then: I forbid that man, whoever he be, my land, my land where I hold sovereignty and throne; and I forbid any to welcome him or cry him greeting or make him a sharer in sacrifice or offering to the Gods, or give him water for his hands to wash.” Here, Oedipus symbolizes not only his power towards his country and community, but also an allusion about how much his loyal followers are expected to respect his words, and fear his attitudes. Today, despite the almost complete extinction of monarchy countries, we as individuals and as a country or society in a democracy, still respect the State and its authority figures.                    Further, in the lines 119-120, Creon says: “By banishing a man, or expiation of blood by blood, since it is murder guilt which holds our city in this destroying storm.” As a way to symbolize that, the only way to make that empire prosper again is to find revenge against those who hurt them […]

In “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles, many things make this story timeless and always relatable to the human condition. One such behavior is the inability to admit when one is wrong. It is common, and most of us would like to think we are immune to such a thing. Still, when confronted with a situation like that, most of us turn defensive and dig in our heels instead of examining the case presented to us and seeing if we are genuinely wrong about something. In the story, Teiresias tells Oedipus that he is the murderer of the king. Oedipus can’t believe his misfortune and gets mad at being told that he is the person who is the one behind the former king Laius’s death. So instead of determining if what the prophet says is true, he gets outraged and sends him away. This situation is an excellent example of literature. We can see in the characters’ behaviors that are relatable to us to this day, even with such a vast gulf of time between us.

Oedipus the King has many timeless human experiences or behaviors. For example, the power of fate. Fate is something that people find very debatable. People being in control of their lives makes them feel superior over others as they are free to make decisions as they wish to. In the case of Oedipus, fate already had a plan for him, even though he found it difficult to accept his reality of no longer being in charge. Another timeless human experience is the concept of family and the troubles that they face. Also, we are taught to be ourselves and in order to do that we must find ourselves. This is shown when Oedipus goes on a journey to make an effort to know the truth about his upbringing. Oedipus is met with his original fate that he tries to get away from, which is a curse that he will one day kill his father and marry his mother.   

Whereas history is particular, literature is universal. We see universal themes in Oedipus, most infamous of all the Oedipal complex. While Freud developed this millennia later, its base themes of an incestuous relationship are heavily inspired by Oedipus, but are far from singular in literature. For example, one can also reference the Electra complex in literature as well. There is also the social concept of men being “mama’s boys,” or more recently the concept of being a “boy mom.” Part of this is pushed by the age-old patriarchal expectation that a man can only be vulnerable around his mother, caregiver that she is. Another prevalent trope is “ignorance is bliss.” While remaining unknowing of the sins he had committed, Oedipus is revered as the savior and ruler. He is able to make such proclamations of driving the scourge from the land due to his pride in his identity as king. There is also the inevitability of fate, in that one can run and hide as much as one may like, but they cannot escape the machinations of fate and the gods.

In reading, “Oedipus the King,” I was able to find many timeless human experiences or behaviors. Oedipus wife Jocasta tells him that Laius was killed at a three-way crossroads, just before Oedipus arrived in Thebes. Oedipus, stunned, tells his wife that he may be the one who murdered Laius. He tells Jocasta that, long ago, when he was the prince of Corinth, he heard at a banquet that he was not really the son of the king and queen, and so went to the oracle of Delphi, which did not answer him but did tell him he would murder his father and sleep with his mother. Hearing this, Oedipus fled from home, never to return. It was then, on the journey that would take him to Thebes, that Oedipus was confronted and harassed by a group of travelers, whom he killed in self-defense, at the very crossroads where Laius was killed. Oedipus shows that he truly believes he killed Laius and is willing to accept not only the responsibility but the punishment for the act.

In “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles, I noticed the timeless human experience of shame and self-punishment. When Jocasta realizes that she has had children with her own child, the shame of what she has done, albeit unknowingly, is too much to bear and she commits suicide. When Oedipus realizes that he has had children with his own mother, he blinds himself because he cannot bear to look at those children. Shame is a universal feeling and this story, being a tragedy, is an extreme situation of the terrible extent of the shameful deed coupled with the public setting of Oedipus and Jocasta being King and Queen. Everyone can relate to feeling regret over a past act or event and subsequently the need to try to right the wrong somehow in order to cope with the inner turmoil. Sophocles creates a scenario where these feelings are so overwhelming that the audience not only sympathizes with the characters, but pities them.

Oedipus the King has many timeless human experiences. One is the mother and son relationship between Oedipus and his mother. Oedipus killed his father Laios to marry his mother Jocasta. Oedipus had a sexual relationship with his mother who created this unconscious love for her him. Jocasta accepted the fact that they both created this sexual desire for each other. This shows the love of a mother and son relationship and incest that occurs between family members today. Some people across the world have created this normality to have sexual relations and marry relatives. Another example is when Oedipus realizes he killed his father which causes him to change by accepting it and owning up to what he did by blinding himself. In today’s society, this shows people could change over time by owning up to what they have done. 

In reading, “Oedipus The King,” there are many common themes that resonate both in modern day arenas as well as the time it was written. First, the people looking to those in power- Oedipus- to cure the existing plight of the plague is certainly familiar when thinking about how our country looked to our government to combat COVID. In the story, this leads Oedipus to seek out the murderer, never expecting the criminal to ultimately be himself.  In his quest, he first becomes paranoid that Creon is maneuvering to unseat him and become king. It is a timeless behavior for those not in power to seek to takeover those in power.  “For only with the people at your back or money can the hunt end in the capture of the crown.” This statement by Oedipus also rings true in contemporary society, as the people at your back would represent today’s voters, and money would represent today’s campaign funds, etc. Be careful what you wish for, is a phrase that also comes to mind when reading this piece, as Oedipus goes to great lengths to discover the truth, even as the people around him try to discourage him from doing so.  Not heeding one’s inner circle’s advice is a behavior that can certainly prove to be a detriment, as we see as the story unfolds. I believe that this is deemed a timeless, classic story because it speaks to the reader’s life no matter the time in history it is read.

Oedipus the King goes through a plethora of universal human experiences. One of the most common is the tragedy that occurs amongst family members as a result of secrets. Another timeless experience is the copulation of mother and son, for whom their names, Jocasta and Oedipus, are still remembered as the Jocasta and Oedipus complexes. The Jocasta experience is when a mother has an incestuous sexual desire for her son, whereas the Oedipus complex is when the boy has an unconscious sexual yearning for the mother. Another everlasting experience is people’s blatant dread and paranoia, and the lengths to which they will go to avoid feeling them, as in Laius’ attempt to murder Oedipus. As fate would have it, Oedipus eventually fulfilled the prophecy. Oedipus would almost certainly have fulfilled his destiny regardless of whether Laius did what he did or did not hear the prophesy due to fate, which is a timeless human experience in and of itself. Even if you attempt to control the ending, as was the case with Oedipus and murdering his father, as well as all that led up to it, including Jocasta’s death and Oedipus blinding himself and leaving himself to wander.

While reading Oedipus the King, I was able to find timeless human experiences. Jocasta, Oedipus’s mother, had killed herself when finding out who the murderer was. She felt distraught about it being Oedipus, who is her husband, that made her commit suicide. She even said that the prophets were lying because she did not want to believe it. These are human experiences because when finding out something very surprising as this, the first thing you want to do is shut it down and not believe it. In this case, it ended up being true which cause a dark ending to her life. The same had happened to Oedipus the King when he realizes that he had killed his father and married his own mother. He blinded himself because he did not want to see what he caused.

My understanding about this quotation is that Aristotle discusses thought and diction and then moves on to address epic poetry. Whereas tragedy consists of actions presented in a dramatic form, epic poetry consists of verse presented in a narrative form. Tragedy and epic poetry have many common qualities, most notably the unity of plot and similar subject matter. In addition, Oedipus’s attitude is presented on multiple occasions’ combining tragic irony with verbal irony, where Oedipus speaks to both his crimes in the same breath. engenders the predicament of whether these crimes are justifiable or not. Those who are procrustean regarding Oedipus’ crimes may insularly claim that they cannot be rationalized. However, further acknowledgment of this quandary brings forth the idea that Oedipus’ crimes of patricide and incest are justified by how his lack of phronesis is inherited, his unawareness influences his actions, and his fate is ultimately under the gods’ control. One may venture that since Oedipus’ hauteur and lack of phronesis are traits passed down in the House of Labdacus, they justify Oedipus’ crimes. This assertion is derived from the argument that Oedipus’ crimes are the result of his lack of phronesis, which is, in essence, an amalgamation of the skills, character, and experience necessary for moral and sound decision-making.

What is the story of Oedipus the King? Oedipus the King is a tragedy about Prince Oedipus, who rose from a higher position to a lower position owing to Fate, Destiny, and free will. He was told by an Oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother, and when he heard that Oracle, he fled from his homeland to Corinth, where he was raised by his foster parents. In your reading of Oedipus, the King, what timeless human experiences or actions can you find? Oedipus was a nice guy who, in his attempts to do the right thing, had spectacularly tragic outcomes. He attempted not to murder his father and marry his mother, but it backfired. It also addresses the Adlerian* dread of not being in control of our own life, of being influenced by powers beyond our comprehension. Finally, it addresses a more common concern that we all have that in acting for all the right reasons, we can end up doing exactly the wrong thing.