Dr. Alex E. Blazer
Department of English
Georgia College & State University
Milledgeville, GA 31061
"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" and Postmodern Theory
This presentation to a Flannery O'Connor class from Allendale, MI visiting Milledgeville, GA distinguishes among modern/postmodern culture and modern/postmodern literature and then argues that Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is modernist in theme because it laments the loss of traditional authority. Next, it posits how O'Connor's literarily modern story nonetheless has postmodern cultural elements of image and media that warrant analysis through the lens of sociologist Jean Baudrillard. Finally, it reads the grandmother's and The Misfit's conflicts in terms of post-structuralist psychoanalysts Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Zizek's in terms of morality and ethics, concluding that the grandmother's contradictory desires for Symbolic goodness collide with The Misfit's Real of subjective destitution.
This abstract summarizes my presentation," English 661 Flannery O'Connor Immersion Studies, Grand Valley State University. Milledgeville, GA. 2 Aug. 2012.