O'Connor Continued

After discussing "A Good Man..." and "The Displaced Person," in class, I've continued to think about the appearance of violence and grace in O'Connor's stories. Austin made an interesting point today, examining the idea that the beauty of O'Connor's works lies in her characters, whom she must love and sympathize with...they represent everyday people, whom we come across frequently...but what makes her stories intriguing is that she throws events of violence and grace at her characters, and allows us to watch how they handle the situations.

I think that I attempt to find the deeper messages O'Connor is giving us, and I miss the simple ones. She hands us simple characters who tend to be, quite frequently, stereotypes. The are people, who, if we ran into them on the street, we wouldn't know whether or not to take them seriously.

I keep wondering, does the misfit shoot the grandma by accident, in response to her moment of grace? In reference to Vince's topic for his paper...I wonder if violence occurs "on camera" in "A Good Man..." because it is unintentional? We hear gunshots off camera, yet we witness the grandmother's moment of grace...O'Connor only allows us to see the Misfit shoot her, in reaction to her calling him her son. In O'Connor's letter on page 1125, she says, "His shooting her is a recoil, a horror at her humanness." I think it is possible that O'Connor shows us this image because it is an accident on the Misfit's part. I don't doubt that his intentions in the story are to kill the grandmother, but I disagree with the timing. Maybe the only reason why this image is revealed to us is because it was on impulse...

The Misfit says, "It's no real pleasure in life" (pg. 153). Bobby Lee finds pleasure in his actions off camera, while the MIsfit finds his reasoning in the occurrence on camera.

O'Connor continues to confuse me, as she leads her characters to contradict themselves. My question today was, "Does O'Connor express her true opinions in her letters, but demonstrate her doubts/confusions through her characters in her stories? The reason why I am so hung up on O'Connor using her characters to portray her own opinions is because of the letter we discussed on page 1208. O'Connor writes to Maryat Lee, (Grace Bug) and tells her that if Griffin sat down next to her on a bus, she would have gotten up and sat by a "genuine Negro." She goes on to say, "I prefer Cassius Clay. "If a tiger move into the room with you...Just means you know you and him can't make out. Too much talk about hate'" (pg. 1208-1209).

So if this is O'Connor's genuine opinion, then how can we rule out the stereotypical characters she has created, and the assumption that they represent her own ideas? There is good and evil in everyone, and we all have doubts sometimes, even on topics that we stand strongly on...is it possible that the "ignorant" and "deplorable" judgements which her characters portray represent O'Connor's underlying uncertainties?