"A Good Man Is Hard to Find"論 : 不条理の超克

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概要

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• It is more than forty years since Flannery O'Connor published one of her best stories, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," in 1953. Its plot is very simple: a family on vacation is killed by an escaped convict, but it presents much more than just the extermination of the whole family, which still causes much argument, in particular, as to what the mysterious ending of the story implies. The grandmother of the family, who is bigoted in conventional and superficial morality, takes little recognition of the absurdity of the world. During the tense conflict with The Misfit, the convict, she reaches the recognition and acceptance of The Misfit as one of her children in an abrupt way. Just after that she is killed by him, but when O'Connor says that the grandmother has a special kind of triumph, this action of grace in the grandmother's soul reflects O'Connor's belief in the possibilities of human existence as a Catholic writer. The Misfit, who has a violent indignation against the absurdity and doubts Jesus Christ's miraculous deeds, is lost between faith and disbelief. The fact that he kills the grandmother seems to represent his denial of God. By making him conclude that "it's no real pleasure in life," however, O'Connor implies that behind the nihilistic confession lies his desire for grace. The Misfit finally stands for the entire human race unaware of the paradoxical way of human existence. In "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" Flannery O'Connor explores the possibility of transcendence of the absurd realities of the modern world through the religious awakening of the existential paradox.

• 広島修道大学の論文
• 1999-03-31

著者

• 山口 格

  広島修道大学

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