ENGL 102

Symbolism in Flannery O’Connor’s Short Fiction

With the help of symbolism Flannery O’Connor tells a more in depth story, a story that

can operate on more levels than it appears to on the surface. Two examples of her use of

symbolism can be found in “Greenleaf and “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” O’Connor says,

“[S]ymbols are details that, while having their essential place in the literal direction,…the mind

is led on by what it sees into the greater depths that the book’s symbols naturally

suggest[;],…the truer the symbol…the more meaning it opens up”(qtd. in Yaghijan 271-2).

O’Connor states that “[in] good fiction, certain of the details will tend to accumulate

meaning from the story itself, and when this happens, they become symbolic in their action”

(O’Connor, Mystery 48). In other words, the details in fiction can become symbolic. Symbols

may not be discerned early in a story; however, they can gain important symbolic value later,

or when repeated. “The fact that these meaning are there makes the book significant. The

reader may not see them but they have their effect on him nonetheless. This is the way the

modern novelist [short story writer] sinks, or hides, his theme (O’Connor, Mystery 49). Symbols

are very important to O’Connor’s writing by impacting or adding multi-layered meaning.

“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is a story about a grandmother who wants to go to see

her friends in Tennessee for the family vacation, and she is not above manipulating the family

to get her way. Despite her pleas and manipulation, she does not get her way and finds

herself headed to Florida with the rest of the family. It becomes apparent that the grandmother

is simply a manipulative person. For instance, she sneaks her cat into the car, knowing her son

Bailey doesn’t like to arrive at a motel with a cat, even when the grandmother has hidden it in

her hatbox. She even embellishes a story about a secret panel in an old plantation that she was

telling the two children to get her way. Their excitement leads Bailey to get off course to visit

the plantation, a change that causes the eventual death of the entire family. This lie to

manipulate her son to take that road to a house from her past, which is actually in a different

state, combines with her sneaking the cat into the car, both events leading to a crash which

leaves the family stranded on the side of a dusty, deserted road. The escaped convict, The

Misfit, whom the grandmother has also warned the family about in order to get them not to go

to Florida, finds them and eventually kills the family members, with the grandmother last. This

plot is the story’s literal level; however, it lays the track for the symbolic meaning O’Connor

adds.

A few of the more obvious symbols in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” are the rabbit, the

“hearselike automobile”, the cat, and The Misfit (O’Connor, “A Good” 403). The mother, who is

never given a name by the grandmother who is dismissive of her, is described as having her

handkerchief wrapped about her head, making her look like a rabbit, an animal most notable

for its rapid procreation or breeding. The “hearselike automobile” is a symbol and foreshadows

the impending deaths (O’Connor, “A Good 403). A hearse is a vehicle that takes a dead body to

its final resting place, its grave. The cat can be seen as the embodiment of the grandmother’s

scheming, her manipulation and lying. Finally, there is The Misfit, symbolic of the devil himself.

The Misfit has many similarities to the devil in reference to Christian dogma. The Misfit

comes from a good family, though his father knew his son was different from the rest and was

going to be a problem. Seemingly polite, kind, and gentlemanly from the grandmother’s point

of view, he is probably just wanting their automobile and has already decided to kill all six of

the family—symbolically foreshadowed when they passed a graveyard with six tombstones

earlier in the day. He apologizes for not having on a shirt to distract from the fact that he just

sent Bailey into the woods to be killed by one of The Misfit’s henchmen. Doesn’t feel his

punishment fits the crime (maybe cheated a little bit). Somehow the grandmother to start

doubting her beliefs. The grandmother this whole time is trying to save herself, even while her

son and his family are ging into the woods and being killed. Finally, at the end, we see the

grandmother coming to a point where her head clears (we can see this as her finally seeing

everything clearly, seeing her issues, faults, etc.), and “she murmured, ‘Why you’re one of my

babies. You’re one of my own children!’” (O’Connor, “A Good” 408). This statement can be seen

as her realizing that we are all family in Christ, or it can be seen that she is realizing that due to

her manipulation she brought about this situation. The cat at the end is seen rubbing itself

against The Misfit’s leg, possibly sensing it is home with its master (manipulation and deceit

home with the devil) or maybe it is begging not to be killed as well. There are, of course, many

other interpretations.

“Greenleaf” is about a widow, Mrs. May, who was left some land and turned it into a

dairy. She hired a man to help out, but she feels he doesn’t do anything unless she stays on

him. There is a bull loose on her property, and she wants it gone before it defiles her purebred

dairy cows. She has two sons of whom she thinks very little. The story is about the process she

goes through trying to get the bull off her property. In the end, her handyman, Mr. Greenleaf,

kills the bull, but only after the bull has killed Mrs. May. When the symbols are add, this story

suddenly becomes a deeper, more meaningful story. This story—rich in religious, social and

sexual symbolism—has as its primary symbol a bull that finally forces the headstrong Mrs. May

to acknowledge the wrongs of her life and possibly make the confession that will assure her

redemption.

The bull, as the primary symbol in the story, is a multi-faceted symbol. As a religious

symbol, the bull represents Christ in several ways. First, after the bull shakes his head, “the

wreath slipped down to the base of his horns where it looked like a menacing prickly crown

(O’Connor, “Greenleaf” 312), and the second as (and after) he pierced her heart” (O’Connor,

“Greenleaf” 333) we see the Christ-like symbol. The wreath, looking like a crown, is

reminiscent of the crown that Christ wore when crucified upon the cross, and the piercing of

Mrs. May’s heart is a reminder of Mrs. Greenleaf’s prayers to Jesus to “stab me in the heart”

(O’Connor, “Greenleaf” 317). Finally, the ending of the story has Mrs. May “bent over

whispering some last discovery into the animal’s ear” (O’Connor, “Greenleaf” 334); this posture

could be seen as a representation of her confessing to Christ and/or asking for His forgiveness.

The bull is a social symbol in that he is a scrub bull that is worth very little and is not

mixed blood and not good enough to be mating with Mrs. May’s purebreds. He is

representative of his owners, the Greenleaf boys, whom she views as low-class. She is worried

about the bull’s ruining her purebred dairy heifers; the heifers representing her “upper-class”

standing (to which she believes she belongs), and the bull’s crossing “the line of demarcation”

and mingling amongst them, even mating with them. Sexual connotation of the bull is seen in

that he is there to “woo” (O’Connor, “Greenleaf” 311) Mrs. May, “an uncouth country suitor,”

(’Connor, “Greenleaf” ) when he gores her (the act of penetration) and the fact that he is a virile

male symbol (which she wants to destroy).

Mrs. May is the typical hypocritical, delusional protagonist in this story. With the

religious aspect we see that she is self-righteous and never wrong. She describes herself as “a

good Christian woman” (O’Connor, “Greenleaf” 316), though she is a hypocrite in most every

aspect. “She did not, of course, believe any of it [religion] was true” (O’Connor, “Greenleaf”

316), she believed she would “…die when [she was] good and ready” (O’Connor, “Greenleaf”

321); and she believed certain words should stay in church. From the social aspect, we see that

her family has no unity (aside from the fact that they all live under the same roof), her sons

have no wives or children; and her dairy farm is dilapidated and out-of-date. The sexual

symbolism seen with Mrs. May is one of wanting to crush and discard any sign of male virility,

of manliness. She has taken her grown sons and turned them into boys. She can’t stand when

Mr. Greenleaf, her handyman, talks about his twin boys being a sign of male potency), and she

wants the bull (also a symbol of male potency and virility) removed from her (eventually killed).

The Greenleaf’s, Mrs. May’s tenant and his offspring, are typical of everything that is

good and right. From the religious viewpoint, we see Mrs. Greenleaf and her true belief: “[y]ou

broke my healing,’ Mrs. Greenleaf said, waving her [Mrs. May] aside. ‘I can’t talk to you until I

finish’” (O’Connor, “Greenleaf” 317) (her belief in the power of prayer, her trust in God to

provide so she doesn’t worry). She empathizes with the less fortunate. From the social aspect,

we see that the family is a tight-knit family; they are very fruitful (having married “aristocratic”

French wives and having multiple children); and they even have a very success and prosperous,

state-of-the-art dairy farm. The sexual view is that they are virile and potent male symbols, first

by being men and Mr. Greenleaf’s having male twins and second by the twins’ having children

of their own.

Rout says, “the violence Mrs. May finally suffers destroys her class pride and impious

self-sufficiency” (Rout 235). Her hypocrisy is even addressed in that “she dies not when she is

‘good and ready,’ but when God chooses” (Rout 235). The bull, as the primary symbol, has

forced Mrs. May possibly to make a confession.

As one can see, O’Connor makes excellent use of symbolism to add depth and to real

the meaning in her short fiction. When reading short fiction, it can be easy to read to just get

the pot of the story and missing the depth of the story. O’Connor says [M]any students confuse

the process of understanding a thing with understand it” (O’Connor, Mystery 48). A quotation

from O’Connor that really helps one to appreciate how to read and truly enjoy fiction says,

“The longer you look at one object, the more of the world you see in it” (O’Connor, Mystery

52).

Works Cited

O’Connor, Flannery. “Greenleaf.” The Complete Stories. Farrrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971.

---. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Literature to Go, edited by Michael Meyer, Bedford/St.

St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 242-253.

---. Mystery and Manners. edited by Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

1969.

Rout, Kathleen. “Dream A Little Dream of Me: Mrs. May and the Bull in Flannery O’Connor’s

‘Greenleaf.’” Studies in Short Fiction, Summer 1968: 233-35.

Yaghijan, Lucretia B. “Flannery O’Connor’s use of symbol, Roger Haight’s Christology, and the

the religious writer.” Theological Studies 63 (63). Theological Studies, Marquette

University. Accessed 17 Sept. 2017.