Flannery OConner And Grotesque Characters Essays

Flannery OConner And Grotesque Characters Flannery OConner and Grotesque Characters One of the most interesting characteristics of Flannery OConners writing is her penchant for creating characters with physical or mental disabilities. Though critics sometimes unkindly labeled her a maker of grotesques, this talent for creating flawed characters served her well. In fact, though termed grotesque, OConners use of vivid visual imagery when describing people and their shortcomings is the technique that makes her work most realistic. OConner herself once remarked that anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it will be called realistic. In OConners The Life You Save May Be Your Own the villain is a one armed hobo named Tom T. Shiftlet. Using his gift of gab and the promise of fixing the place up. He manages to take up on the remote farm of an old woman named Lucynell Crater and her mentally retarded and completely deaf daughter Lucynell Crater. The old woman quickly decides that despite his handicap she would like to make Tom her son in law. His goal soon became, fix up the old car he was sleeping in and hightail it out of there with the car and some of the old womans money in his pocket. On the pretense that he would need it for a honeymoon trip, he convinces the old woman to fix the car and give him some cash. The story ends with him marrying the retarded daughter, leaving with her on a honeymoon trip, then abandoning her in a rundown diner on the side of the road. Good Country People is a story about Joy Hopewell, a very well educated young woman living in the rural south. Joy lost a leg in a hunting accident when she was ten and since then had been forced to wear a wooden replacement. She also had a weak heart and it was this affliction that forced her to remain amongst these good country people whom she considered to be intellectual inferiors. Though she had great confidence in her intelligence she had very little self-esteem. Joys handicap made her feel ugly, so ugly that much to her mothers dismay, she had her name legally changed to the ugliest one she could think of, Hulga. One day a traveling bible salesman named Manley Pointer made a sales call and ended up having dinner with the family. Manley took a liking to Joy and secretly asked her to meet him the next night. She agreed, thinking he was really very simple and beneath her intellectually, but because she relished the attention she decided to humor him. In the final irony of this st ory, simple Manley turns out to be a very shrewd con man who lures Joy into the loft of an old barn with the intent of having sex with her. When she realizes this and resists, he steals her wooden leg and departs leaving her helpless. Flannery OConners The Life You Save May Be Your Own and Good Country People dont seem to have much in common at first, but they actually have several common grotesque elements. Both make use of handicapped characters, Joy Hopewells wooden leg, Tom Shiftlets missing arm, and Lucynells deafness and mental retardation. Even the characters names in both stories tend to add to the image OConner was trying to create. Consider Joy (Hulga) Hopewell, who is joyless, hopeless, and unwell, and Tom T, Shiflet, which immediately brings shiftless to mind. Flannery OConner spent most of her adult life handicapped herself. In addition to her keen powers of observation, this was likely the source of her talent for this style of writing. Inevitably she transferred some of her personal experiences to her work, perhaps she was mirroring a personal tragedy with these two stories. The strongest common element is a female character left devastated when a man takes advantage of their handicaps. English Essays

Mandatory Sentencing essays

Mandatory Sentencing essays Crimes in America are growing each day. There are different reasons to the growing of the crimes committed. One big reason that comes to mind is the fact that some criminals are not receiving enough burdens on their punishment. Repeat offenders are currently playing a big role in the growing of the crimes in America. Maybe the penalties that were given in the past are not enough for the potential criminals decision on not doing a crime. In recent years, various mandatory sentencing laws have faced increasing criticism and numerous political or legal challenges. One of the main complaints for the law is that it is too harsh. Many observers criticize mandatory sentences for forcing judges to impose sentences that are too harsh. Some criminals third strike are said to be nonviolent crimes that critics say does not warrant a mandatory twenty five year sentence. For example, a homeless man who was convicted for attempting to break into a church to steal food in nineteen ninety seven and received a three-strike sentence of twenty five years to life. Critics refer back to this over and over. Some legal analysts also blame three strikes laws and other types of mandatory sentences for clogging the court system. It is said that putting all of these criminals into prison is costly. Critics say that mandatory sentences are not justifiable on the basis of cost- effectiveness. The main reason they argue is because of the high cost of imprisoning people. Americans who disagree with the law say that too much of there tax money goes towards prison cost in which the population is still going to raise. The fact that repeat offenders play a big role in growing of the crime rate grabs the attention of many innocent citizens who only want a civilized society. This affects the citizens because it seems that if a person commits a crime and goes to the county jail or prison, that he or she has learned his or her lesson. That is not...

'Globalization exacerbates human insecurity in both rich and poor Essay - 1

'Globalization exacerbates human insecurity in both rich and poor countries'.Discuss the implications of this statement for social policy and welfare regimes - Essay Example Human insecurity relates to various problems which people face in both rich and poor countries. These problems arise from the inability of people to exercise their choices safely and freely, thus leading to diminished confidence in the ability of the society to provide them with any hope for the future. They include hunger, crime, little or no access to health care, poor living conditions, famines, ethnic conflicts, social disintegration, terrorism, pollution, human trafficking and drug trafficking. These insecurities fall into several categories: economic insecurity, food insecurity, health insecurity, personal insecurity, environmental insecurity, community and cultural insecurity, and political insecurity. Globalisation is nothing new. It has been around from the 1800s. According to WTO (2008) it started in the middle of the 19th century and ended before the First World War. Since then, there has been two episodes which have been characterised by varying levels of international integration in trade, capital flows and movement of labour. According to Yeates (2002) globalization became an established term in social science and most recently in social policy. Liberal theory presents globalization as a welcome easing of political constraints upon economic production and exchange and as a force leading to greater political and economic integration worldwide. In fact some people see globalization as flows of capital, people and information and this makes them excited about the opportunities that come with it. Meanwhile, Hay and Watson (1999) and Teeple (1995) cast doubts on its true purpose and see it as the unfolding of oppression of different peoples by a dictatorial form of global economic regime. Those views form part of the critical theory which emphasises the belief that economic globalisation as a polarising force with many