While reading “The Geranium” and “Judgment Day,” I thought it was interesting that the two stories were so similar, both stories dealt with an older gentleman that had to move from the South to live with his daughter in a New York apartment. I thought this was interesting because it seemed that the fathers had to give up control and become a dependant on the very people that they had cared for, and the old men seemed to despise this situation as well as the daughters. The daughters not only seemed inconvinced by the situations that they are placed in but are at a complete lost in how to be around their fathers.
It was also odd that when the old men lived in the South they befriended “negros” and felt more comfortable with them than their own families which show how the times were changing while O’Conner wrote this story. The African American population was becoming independent of their stereotype. The difference between the old men within the two stories is in “Geranium”, Old Dudley cannot believe that the black man whom moves into the building is actually renting an apartment within the same building that his daughter lives in, and he is shocked that a black man is at the same economic status as his daughter. Also the difference between the black men within the stories is that the black man in “Geranium,” not only does not hurt Old Dudley but takes care of him and helps him to the door. It seems to me that the black men in the stories and the old men within the stories seem to flip flop positions on how they react to one another when first meeting, even though the old men still have odd stereotypes about the men moving into the apartment building.
I also thought in the “Judgment Day” that the way she lays out the story is very different from how O’Conner usually lays out the story. In O’Conner’s stories she gives you each thing in linear form, one thing after another but in “Judgment Day,” everything seems mixed up like it is coming in segments and he does not know what is happening I wonder if she sets it up like this because Tanner has a stroke.
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I like your points about the differences of the characters in the stories. Of course, the stories are so similar it's almost like reading the same one twice. However, I think the characters are different enough that we come to different conclusions. In "The Geranium," the old man never gets to go home but in "Judgment Day" the old man is sent home to be buried. So he was more successful in getting what he wanted, to go home, because he was unable to break free of his racist stereotypes. He calls the black man that comes to help him "Preacher" as he always called black men and the black man reacts badly. Because they can't get along, he is sent back to the South where he already knows the social norms. Old Dudley, where he is equally racist, stays trapped in New York because he does not have a confrontation with the black man.
Also, I think that "Judgment Day" was not told in a linear form because the old man is unable to reconcile his life with his old life in the South. Therefore, he feels out of place and the story jumps around so the reader feels out of place as well.
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