Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," as does most of her writing, employs simple sentences that offset the colorful speech of the characters and highlight the climactic end. This writing allows for the story's smooth pace in the beginning and dramatic crescendo at the end.
The writing in this short story contains as few elements as possible–subject, predicate, a modifier or two. The simplicity of her writing therefore allows character's dialogue to shine with their regional variances. Consider this paragraph:
"Red Sam came in and told his wife to quit lounging on the counter and hurry up with these people's order... He came over and sat down at a table nearby and let out a combination sigh and yodel. "You can't win," he said. "You can't win," and he wiped his sweating red face off with a gray handkerchief. "These days you don't know who to trust," he said. "Ain't that the truth?" (O'Connor).
The change in writing to include colorful dialogue is especially apparent when the family encounters The Misfit. At this point, the story has progressed in a steady pace, but the sudden encounter pits O'Connor's simplistic writing with The Misfit's rough speech:
"I wasn't there so I can't say He didn't," The Misfit said. "I wisht I had of been there," he said, hitting the ground with his fist... His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother's head cleared for an instant. She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them" (O'Connor).
These two types of sentences, simple descriptions and colorful dialogue, work together to create a predictable flow of the story's buildup that ends in a dramatic close.
No comments:
Post a Comment