Death and the Maiden

One of JCO's inspirations was the myth of the Death and the Maiden... there are a lot of questions around the myth, like good myths should have.
Apparently, the myth may be based on the story of Persephone's abduction by Hades. Persephone was hanging out in a field one day and picked a pretty little Narcissus flower. Suddenly, the ground opened up and Hades took her down into Hadesland. She became Queen of the Underworld (if that isn't a cool job title, I don't know what is).
(methinks there is a connection between Connie and Persephone-- considering the Narcissus thing. Narcissus = self-absorbed. Connie is definitely self-absorbed. This leads to her demise... hmmm [stroking chin thoughtfully])


The Death of the Maiden myth has some great interpretations in art, from the melancholy victim to the interested victim, sexual vs. non sexual, etc. The myth really came to full form in Germany during the Renaissance. Death is ugly and gross and the victim is beautiful and/or a virgin. The Death and the Maiden explores the ties between death and sexuality/sensuality.

There was definitely a didactic role for the story--- warning girls of Stranger Danger and also that their beauty is fleeting.

I found some great art that interprets the Death and the Maiden theme better than I could. Here goes...


by Hans Baldung Grien-
bad resolution sorry! But you can see that the "death" character has the maiden by the hair, looking down towards the grave (not pictured) that he has dug for her. Note the maiden's face-- she seems almost resigned to her death. Her body language is very passive and feminine. Not that females should be passive, ahem. But, still.

This one's my favorite! It's the most recent and most interesting interpretation, I think.
By Joseph Bueys (1959)
It's hard to see with this picture so small... but it's actually drawn on an envelope from an organization of Auschwitz survivors. Death and the maiden look almost exactly alike in this work-- bony, almost disappearing. Has the maiden already died? Is she no different than death?
Niklaus Manuel Deutsch - 1517
creepy, no? Is it just me or does death have wings? Flying death?
The maiden has her head turned towards death....
Edvard Munch
The maiden isn't afraid of death, but embraces him.
Another by Edvard Munch.
They kiss, but the maiden looks off, rather blankly, if you ask me.
Egon Schiele 1915
They're in a rocky landscape. He's kissing her head and she's embracing him? Or is she trying to avoid the kiss? And why are her arms so skinny/skeletal, when her legs are so muscular? And death isn't really skeletal... kinda looks like Dracula.

Marianne Stokes 1900.

Death is a woman? Huh? and more wings.... No sexuality here.
All in all, Death and the Maiden usually warns girls against vanity.
But there are a lot of interpretations of it.

Title questions - WAYGWHYB

Where are you going, where have you been?

If the 33, 19, 17 number code is truly Judges 19:17, then the title makes some sense for sure.

In this article,
the author suggests that perhaps part of the title is that the father who "doesn't talk much" doesn't ask the normal father-of-a-teenage-girl questions that SHOULD be asked of little miss Connie like "Where are you going?" and "Where have you been?"

O'Connor's Influence

When Joyce Carol Oates was asked in a 1969 interview whether she was like Flannery O'Connor, she responded,

"I don't know. I used to think that I was influenced by O'Connor. I don't know that I am really. She is so religious, and her works have to be seen as religious works with this other rather creepy dimension in the background, whereas in my writing there is only the natural world."

Interesting, no? Oates said that before "Where are you going, where have you been" was published. The truth is, whether JCO likes it or not, there is so much of the non-"natural" world going on in "WAYGWHYB."

Of course, the most obvious part of that is Arnold Friend as Satan or Satanic or a Seductor in general.

MOREEEEEEEEEEE

Fairy Tales Gone Wrong

It is worth noting that both WAYGWHYB and AGMIHTF seem to be based on a "fairy tale gone wrong" kind of plot.

The family in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is going on a cute little family vacay/road trip before disaster strikes.

And poor little Connie has her kind of "Red Riding Hood" plotline. She leads a somewhat charmed life until the seducer leads her away.

Just a thought.

Charles Schmid

Everyone, I would like to introduce you to Charles Schmid. The pied piper of Tucson.

Don't be fooled by the coy little eyebrow raise. He might kill you.


He was an inspiration for JCO's "Where are you going, Where have you been"

Read more here, ya'll.

Connie and the Grandmother

Vanity vanity vanity...

We can see a lot of similarities between the demeanor/narcissism of Connie and the Grandmother.

They are both so self-absorbed.

Is the Grandmother's death a Death and the Maiden tale as well?

Hmm...

Innocence and Experience

It's funny to read JCO's story again as a college student. My high school English teacher for my freshman and sophomore years went to Princeton, and so, being that JCO teaches at Princeton, I was immersed in the Oates.

At 15, I read "Where are you Going, Where Have you Been" and was struck by the oh-so-common "loss of innocence" motif. I remember actually going home after reading the story and writing my own version about a girl stuck in the moment in between innocence and experience. I named her Lavender. I had her floating around the house, in an out-of-body experience, unable to attach herself to the innocence of her childhood, and equally as unable to be in the realm of experience.

I saw Connie much that way, and I suppose so did Oates, because there is a lot of "she was in the kitchen but she didn't remember it looking like that" stuff in the text.

I'm always struck by the screen door.

It's only the screen door between her and death. Between innocence and experience. Just a flimsy, translucent/transparent screen door.

Now, all this innocence talk isn't to say that Connie is some angel, but she had only dabbled in the experiential world until Arnold Friend forced her to see the harsh reality of "adult" life.

It's mostly just sad for me to see that Connie has only the option of experience in the harshest way. There's no gray area at all. She's going to become experienced, whether she's willing or unwilling.

Sad.

33, 19, 17

Ah, the famous numbers.

33+19+17=69

Judges 19:17 is....
And he lifted up his eyes and saw the traveler in the open square of the city; and the old man said, "Where are you going, and where do you come from?"

Judges is the 33rd book counted from the back of the Bible to the front... hmm....

Coincidence? Or not? It seems farfetched, but it just fits SO well!

33,19,17 could be a woman's measurements.... but Connie would be a weird-looking woman with a 33 inch bust and only a 17 inch hip... awkward.

(JCO works cited and consulted)

"Where are you going, Where have you been" by Joyce Carol Oates

Celestial Timepiece - A JCO homepage

JCO on why she dedicated the story to Bob Dylan
(with a video interview at the bottom of the page)
http://jco.usfca.edu/ondylan.html

Killing Two Birds with One Stone: Oates' Figurative and Literal Reasons behind "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
by Bess Rhode

JCO video

Here's a little video to give you an idea of JCO. She's still alive and teaching at the university level. This video has her talking about "writing characters," focused more on her novel Gravedigger's Daughter, but it's fun to see her in action.

ps. there are lots of other fun Youtube videos on Joyce Carol Oates, including one of an interview with JCO and Vonnegut discussing censorship!

Baby Blue meets A. Friend

There you are, folks. Our sweet little Connie being tempted by Arnold Friend
aka
A. Friend
A. Fiend
An old friend
An old fiend

with the clubfoot/cloven hoof

The Songs

I find it interesting that both "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Where Are You Going, Where Have you Been" are based on a song:

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Bessie Smith
listen to it here

My heart's sad and I am all forlorn,
my man's treating me mean
I regret the day that I was born
and that man of mine I've ever seen
Happiness, it never lasts a day,
my heart is almost breaking while I say

A good man is hard to find,
you always get the other kind
Just when you think that he is your pal,
you look for him and find him fooling 'round some other gal
Then you rave, you even crave
to see him laying in his grave
So, if your man is nice, take my advice
and hug him in the morning, kiss him ev'ry night,
give him plenty lovin', treat him right
For a good man nowadays is hard to find,
a good man nowadays is hard to find

Apparently, O'Connor was inspired to write "AGMIHTF" by a newspaper article about a 7-year-old girl in a pink tutu who won a talent competition by singing the blues song of the same name. Flannery thought it was hilarious that such a young girl would be singing such a sad, worldly song. A good man is hard to find, folks, so if you have one that's halfway-decent, keep him around, cuz he may be the only one halfway-decent that you can find. Depressing.

Bob Dylan - "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"
(Inspiration for Oates' Story)


You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
Crying like a fire in the sun
Look out the saints are comin' through
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense
Take what you have gathered from coincidence
The empty handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.

All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home
Your empty handed armies, are all going home
Your lover who just walked out the door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start a new
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.

(o'connor works cited and consulted)

This is so not MLA! I'm just going to list a bunch of links that were really helpful in compiling this project, and also some that might be helpful when doing O'Connor research or when searching for criticism on "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

the text:
http://www.turksheadreview.com/library/texts/oconnor-goodmanhard.html

the most amazing O'Connor website! (this guy has way too much time on his hands, but I appreciate him)
Comforts of Home: The Flannery O'Connor Repository
be sure to click on all the essays (there are many!). There are some that are quite helpful.

A great little essay on the story:
http://www.geocities.com/mcmillenj/ereview.html

On foreshadowing in "AGMIHTF"
http://rasha.adderpit.com/flannery.html

A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Edwin Curley
Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association,
Vol. 65, No. 3 (Nov., 1991), pp. 29-45
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3130141

The Dark Side of the Cross:
Flannery O'Connor's Short Fiction by Patrick Galloway

Helpful Guide to Flannery O'Connor Research
http://www2.gcsu.edu/library/sc/collections/oconnor/focbi.html

Links to Critical Essays

Flannery's Blog (if she had one)
http://flanneryoconnor.blogspot.com/

a brief (very brief) biography
http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap10/oconnor.html

O'Connor for Dummies
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/flannery.htm

The Good and the Bad of "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

Here is the text of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

This story plays with the ideas of good and bad. What seems to be "good" at first is actually bad, while what is bad doesn't seem so bad, but not quite good, and does anyone even seem good in the first place, etc? We ask ourselves these questions when reading.

O'Connor sets the stage for what seems like a Norman Rockwell painting: A family about to take a fun, yet dysfunctional little roadtrip down to Florida, with a whining granny and some sassy little kids. It's good. Yet, the great Southern lifestyle is turned into a nightmare. The grotesque. What we think was good was actually so very bad.

The good:

1. Red Sam
Red Sam is a "good man." He asks the family why he let 2 boys charge their gas, and the grandmother replies that he did it "because he's a good man." This judgment is only based on the fact that he trusted two strangers, not on any other aspect of his character. How would the grandmother know if he's good or not? She hardly knows him at all.
The grandmother is shallow, we can definitely say by reading the story, so her assessment of Red Sam is shallow as well. She lives to perform her age-old etiquette. Think: Southern belle past her prime. What she said to Red Sam was just a formality. The grandmother is a pro when it comes to manipulation and faking.

2. The family
The family is a huge element of Southern culture, to be sure. This whole story challenges the "Norman Rockwell"esque idea of the family and its function. Nobody really likes each other in this family. What is conventionally considered "good," really isn't so good after all.
The family members only tolerate each other.

If "family" is a means of describing prescribed human interaction, then this is no family at all. They hardly communicate or relate to each other at all. Each is completely concerned with his or her own perspective and mindset, from the sassy little June Star, to the single-minded Bailey, to the selfish grandmother.

The only real familial moment occurs at the very end of the story. "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," but he shot her in the chest as soon as he felt her touch. The most profound human interaction of the whole story ironically happens when it is much too late. The Misfit gets it more than anyone when he says, "She would of been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." Only when threatened with death does the grandmother reach outside of herself at all.


3. The "good old days"
The grandmother lives in her past. She and Red Sam talk about the times when you could have your screen door unlocked. The old days were "good." When the grandmother thinks of an old house that she'd like to see again so that she can remember some of those old days, she manipulates the family into letting her go see it. Here comes the irony! The house she was thinking of wasn't anywhere near the dirt road they were traveling on, and so her realization leads to their car accident, which leads to all of their deaths. Good one, grandma. The good old days were a myth! The house she imagined wasn't anywhere near where she had originally thought. Her memories betrayed her, which shows that the good old days were maybe not so good after all. Maybe they were just old.

4. Southern Gentility and Etiquette
As aforementioned, the grandmother relies heavily on her idea of social etiquette. Her first plea to the Misfit is "You wouldn't shoot a lady, would you?" This seems so ridiculous, but her instinct is to fall back on etiquette to protect her. The grandmother has done this her whole life! But... no southern social tradition can save her.

largely in the society of ducks

This blaper (I decided to call it a blaper. Blog + paper = blaper. Got it? I mean, it could be worse... I could call it a plog. Or a blessay. Or an essog. Oh, the possibilities are endless.) will explore the stories "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor and "Where are you going, Where have you been" by Joyce Carol Oates. This exploration will probably include information on the authors and play with the similarities between the two works, as well as the differences.

First of all: I'll start with Flannery. Why? Because she's got the cooler name. And, unlike my education has taught me to do, I will refer to her by her first name, rather than her last name. Why? Because I want to. And because it's more fun than O'Connor.
(fact: her real name was Mary Flannery O'Connor. People in the South are all about those weird middle names)Isn't she so cute?

Author bio:
(March 25, 1925 - August 3, 1964)
Born and raised in Georgia

(There's a book called Conversations with Flannery O'Connor, which shares some of the great little tidbits of advice and humor and self-criticism that Flannery shared in interviews.)

"I write every day for two hours, and I spend the rest of my time largely in the society of ducks."

Ah, Flannery. Isn't she the best? She had an affinity for fowl, and I'm not being facetious. She really did. After she got sick with Lupus in 1951 (which her dad died of when she was 15), she moved back to her family farm in Andalusia, Georgia.

I would move there too. I'll bet you it even has a wraparound porch. Sigh.
At Andalusia she took to raising Peafowl. I had no idea what a peafowl was until I wikipediaed it.
(and then I found out that peafowl are, collectively, peacocks (males) and peahens (females). I've just been calling them all "peacocks" forever. I love wikipedia.)

Some have said that the best American Literature is regional in nature, which may be true. Flannery is certainly a regional author. Much of her inspiration is drawn from Southern life or spirituality (Flannery was a Catholic in a very Protestant area).

I'm having a tough time deciding how much time and effort I want to devote to exploring spirituality in Flannery's works... because you could definitely write a whole thesis on her synthesis (or not) of Catholicism/faith with literature/art.

Flannery's work has been both loved and hated in the Christian and Catholic community. Many question how she can be both so grotesque and disturbing in her writing and yet claim to be a Catholic. Others hail her as a wonderful example of the faith/art debate in writing, fully supportive of Catholicism and also fully supportive of art and truth.

The other main criticism of O'Connor (ok, so the educated side of me took over. I couldn't help it) is that she is "grotesque," but O'Connor just calls it "realist." Like Faulkner, O'Connor sees the more "southern" side of things. The South and the North were still (and, arguably, ARE still) so different. The issue of race and violence with the clash of Protestantism and Catholicism gave Southerners a much more "real" perspective of life. O'Connor argued 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 is going to be called realistic" (link).

This quote from O'Connor is so telling of her work:
"Mine is a comic art, but that does not detract from its seriousness."

(acquiescing)

I finally decided to make a blog. My reasons for doing so are two-fold, like a napkin.

1. I've been wanting to do so for a short while.
1a. My friends keep pressuring me, and I've never been one to resist peer pressure.

2. I have a class project in which I am comparing two texts, and since I'm so very tired of analytical papers, I thought that a blog would be an interesting format for an "essay."

that is all.