Man Is Hard To Find And St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves

Analyzing the two short stories, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, by Flannery O’Connor and “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, by Karen Russell, I discovered that they both had similar themes of identity however; they were presented in different ways between each text. The misfit from “A Good Man” had no real identity according to the story. His life was unclear to the reader. To identify himself, he used the term misfit and he fulfills this term by acting in crazy ways. The characters, Claudette, Mirabella and Jeanette from the story “St. Lucy’s”, show the theme of identity loss through description and imagery. The whole pack enters the institution together as one and leaves as completely different, individual people. Everyone but Mirabella forced themselves to be someone else, therefore losing their identity. In both of these short stories, the theme of identity confusion and loss is clearly shown and affects the characters emotions ranging from being happy to being sad and confused and this is shown through description and imagery throughout both texts. The character of the Misfit in the short story “Good Man”, …show more content…
The narrator, Claudette shows the difficulty of internal and external struggle to transform in order to fit in. She describes how the transformation was confusing and hard. For example, “we were all uncomfortable, and between languages” (Russell 232). Claudette felt awkward and stressed with all of the new rules and ways she had learn. The pack started to separate making it an unsettling time for all of them. They were constantly struggling to not mess up. Claudette would always mention to herself “Shoes on feet, and mouth shut” (Russell 233). She continuously reminded herself to keep on the right track and not to go back to her old ways. The constant struggles to fit in took a toll on the characters causing them to question who they were at