Relationships between Women and Men in Literature

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the portrayal of the relationships found between men and women in literature and how this portrayal is influenced by the society of the time. Specifically, the paper compares Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and Margaret Laurence's "The Loons" with the aim of fully understanding the female-male relationships in these texts.

From the Paper:

"While Piquette and the narrator's father in Laurence's story do not share a connection as complex as that of the Misfit and the grandmother, nonetheless their connection is important. As Piquette confesses to the narrator when they later meet: "Your dad was the only person in Manawaka that ever done anything good to me" (Laurence 59). The narrator admits that she was repelled by the neediness and the "terrifying hope" in Piquette's relationships with men (Laurence 59). Her father saw something admirable in Piquette that was worthy of his intervention to help her and, unlike all of the other men in her life, he helped her selflessly and did not see her in common stereotypes employed by his daughter and the other townspeople (Notes). The symbol of the loon, which the father identifies and the story implies Piquette represents, reflects how the central meaning of the story lies in the complex interaction of these two characters."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bandy, Stephen. ""One of my Babies": The Misfit and the Grandmother." Studies in Short Fiction. 33(1996).
• Browning, Preston. Flannery O'Connor. Carbondale, ILL: South Illinois University Press, 1974.
• Laurence, Margaret. "The Loons." In Course Reader: EAC 150. Ed. Jack Burman. Toronto: Seneca College, 2006, 53-61.
• Notes on Margaret Laurence's "The Loons." Accessed: November 1, 2006. http://www.ualberta.ca/~dmiall/ShortStory/Laurence.htm
• O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find."

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