Post-modernism and Psychoanalysis

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Post-Modernism and Psychoanalysis
Flannery O’Connor writes a story about the dangers of mistaking clichés for original visions in “Good Country People”. A story published in 1955 with three characters ruled by clichés of which they either hold or discard. One character who stood out to me as engaging is Hulga-Joy who is the daughter of Mrs. Hopewell. She is defined as an opposition of her mother’s clinches. However, Joy has a transformative experience as the story ends, implying that she will change, though there is no much of the effects of her experience in the story (Whitt 4). The character change in her is a conversion from pride and false confidence to humility. Dynamically, Hulga-Joy learns lessons for a change in the future (O’Connor 352).
Flannery O’Connor was born on March 25th 1925 in Georgia U.S, and she died of lupus in August 3rd 1964 in Georgia after a long struggle. Her father had died during her teenage (O’Connor 10). Writer studied literature in the University of Lowa and was able to publish “The Geranium” as her first short story. O’Connor grew up as a Roman Catholic and religion became the habitual theme in her work, and also took preachers as main characters in her first books. Moreover, in her stories, she expounds the occurrence of brutality by stating violence “is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace.”(O’Connor 45). Finally, the flawed characters of each of her stories are exposed in apocalyptic instants of violence and conflict presented with comic detachment.

Tim O’Brien was born on 1st October 1946. He is an American novelist and author of the war novel “Going After Cacciato” which was published in 1978. It is a story of a soldier abandoning his squad in Vietnam to walk to Paris. Although O’Brien is yet to explain Vietnam, he assumes his readers know the setting of the story and takes a blind lead (Naparsteck et al 11). We can see the plans of Cacciato to travel to Paris from Vietnam which sounds ridiculous (O’Brien 56). And before we even get to know the soldiers, there is an indication of jealously from them towards Cacciato and just like him; they also want to leave Vietnam War behind. Cacciato’s decision might be a journey to look for peace. Lastly, Cacciato remains as a mystery.
Work cited
Naparsteck, Martin, and Tim O’Brien. “An Interview with Tim O’Brien.” Contemporary Literature 32.1 (1991): 1-11.
O’Connor, Flannery. “Good Country People:[Selections from the short story].” Academic Medicine 91.3 (2016): 352.
O’brien, Tim. Going After Cacciato. Broadway Books, 2009.
Whitt, Margaret Earley. Understanding Flannery O’Connor. Reaktion Books, 1997.