How does Flannery O`Connor employ the use of irony in both of her stories `Everything that rises must converge` and `Good country People` to better communicate her ideas to the reader?

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March 28 , 2007

Flannery O 'Connor : Irony

Irony in Good Country People ' and Everything that Rises Must Converge

In Good Country People ' and Everything that Rises Must Converge Flannery O 'Connor uses irony as a device to convey both the psychological and physical limitations of the characters . In an article on Flannery O 'Connor in Encyclopedia of Southern Literature , the author writes that O 'Connor is an unapologetic explicator of the doctrine of human limitation (237 . The physical and psychological limitations in these stories include Joy 's artificial

leg , name , and figurative blindness Julian 's mother 's inability to move on from the past and Julian 's depression , feelings toward his mother , and figurative blindness

Flannery O 'Connor uses irony to reveal Joy 's physical and psychological limitations in Good Country People ' Her really memorable creations of characters and actions take place in the stories , which are extremely funny , sometimes unbearably so , and finally we may wonder just what it is we are laughing at . Upon consideration the jokes are seen to be dreadful ones , as with Manley Pointer 's treatment of Joy Hopewell 's artificial leg in Good Country People ( Flannery ' Norton , 2403 Certainly , Joy 's artificial leg is the most obvious example of a physical limitation in either of the stories . It is ironic that the only character in the story who seems normal ' is the only one with a physical disability . Joy 's character is humorous in her treatment of her mother and Mrs . Freeman , as well as her six-year-old skirt and a yellow sweat shirt with a faded cowboy on a horse ' Yet O 'Connor punishes Joy for her disability , and she is humiliated at the end of the story when Manley Pointer takes her artificial leg . In the barn , she indignantly climbed the ladder into the loft to show that she is not limited by her disability . However , at the end of the story , all she can do is scream , Give me my leg ' This is typical of O 'Connor 's writing In Anagogical Vision and Comedic Form in Flannery O 'Connor : The Reasonable Use of the Unreasonable ' Askin writes

Episodic and irrational on the surface , the comic plot turns on its own brand of inevitability . Blocking characters are outwitted by their own cleverness , led by their own vices into traps , or caught out by characters they had dismissed as marginal and powerless . Traps snap shut with a kind of ironic precision that suggests an underlying and justice . Obvious juxtaposition of opposing scenes , coupled with clockwork timing give an impression of the victory of plot over character (50

Throughout most of the story , the reader is laughing at Joy 's behavior However , O 'Connor 's use of irony to make Joy a humorous character and then humiliate and punish her at the end of the story highlights the permanence of physical limitations

In addition , Joy 's name is ironic . Her given name is Joy Hopewell , but the character is neither joyful nor hopeful...