This is an Analysis of the short story A Late Encounter with The Enemy by Flannery O'Connor.
the story starts with the reader being acquainted with the two main protagonists, General George Poker Sash (104 years old) and his granddaughter, Sally Poker Sash (62 years old). Sally is because of graduate from school and it is her desire (want) that her grandfather has a part in her graduation. This longing isn't a result of affection for her grandfather rather Sally wants to parade him before individuals because of his history.
A history that the reader before long ends up aware isn't all that it is by all accounts. George Poker Sash was never a General (he was a trooper) in the Confederate army amid the American Civil War. The title General was given to him, twelve years already, by an attention agent who required somebody to help advance a film about the Civil War.
Another thing which turns out to be clear to the reader is the fact that while George embraces the here and now (he prefers all the attention he gets from being a General), Sally then again is solidly established in the past. There are two notable examples which feature this, the principal being the fact that Sally is heading off to college to obtain her B.S in Education. She is being compelled to do as such by her bosses and has spent the last twenty summers attending school (she's already a teacher yet doesn't have the degree).
She loathes this and regardless of all that she has been taught (how to teach kids) despite everything she does the inverse (defiance, stuck in the past). The second notable example of Sally being stuck in the past happens when the reader is told about the time that she brought George onto the stage at the film première What ought to have been one of the proudest minutes throughout her life ended up being an embarrassment. Regardless of wearing another dress, when she looked down at her shoes she saw that she was all the while wearing (image) her 'two darker Girl Scouts oxfords.' Sally trusts that by having George on the stage at her graduation she will finally have the capacity to put these recollected failures behind her.
What Sally and George do have in like manner is the fact that they both want to be the focal point of attention. Sally at her graduation and George likes putting on his General's uniform and being paraded around individuals, particularly pretty ladies (vulgar want).
He is also partial to enlightening individuals concerning how he attended the film première and was treated like a star. It is lost on both Sally and George that he was fundamentally utilized by the attention agent as a prop to advance the film and ironically Sally is as liable as the exposure agent of treating her grandfather as a prop or living relic. There are no undeniable indications of affection from Sally for her grandfather. In the event that anything having him at her graduation is more to advance her (image) and her idea of her family history.
O'Connor plays on the theme of image again by presenting Sally's nephew John Wesley. Sally trusts that by having John Wesley in his khaki outfit (Boy Scout) he'll compliment George on the stage at her graduation (which thusly Sally accepts will make her look great). Another important thing about the presentation of John Wesley is that if Sally lives in the past and George in the present there is no questioning that John Wesley speaks to what's to come.
This point is emphasized at the graduation when instead of carrying George into the auditorium, Sally finds George and John Wesley outside by a Coca Cola candy machine. At the time the story is set, coin operated Coca Cola candy machines would have been a relatively new innovation and by associating John Wesley with the candy machine O'Connor may recommend that John Wesley symbolizes what's to come. READ MORE...
the story starts with the reader being acquainted with the two main protagonists, General George Poker Sash (104 years old) and his granddaughter, Sally Poker Sash (62 years old). Sally is because of graduate from school and it is her desire (want) that her grandfather has a part in her graduation. This longing isn't a result of affection for her grandfather rather Sally wants to parade him before individuals because of his history.
A history that the reader before long ends up aware isn't all that it is by all accounts. George Poker Sash was never a General (he was a trooper) in the Confederate army amid the American Civil War. The title General was given to him, twelve years already, by an attention agent who required somebody to help advance a film about the Civil War.
Another thing which turns out to be clear to the reader is the fact that while George embraces the here and now (he prefers all the attention he gets from being a General), Sally then again is solidly established in the past. There are two notable examples which feature this, the principal being the fact that Sally is heading off to college to obtain her B.S in Education. She is being compelled to do as such by her bosses and has spent the last twenty summers attending school (she's already a teacher yet doesn't have the degree).
She loathes this and regardless of all that she has been taught (how to teach kids) despite everything she does the inverse (defiance, stuck in the past). The second notable example of Sally being stuck in the past happens when the reader is told about the time that she brought George onto the stage at the film première What ought to have been one of the proudest minutes throughout her life ended up being an embarrassment. Regardless of wearing another dress, when she looked down at her shoes she saw that she was all the while wearing (image) her 'two darker Girl Scouts oxfords.' Sally trusts that by having George on the stage at her graduation she will finally have the capacity to put these recollected failures behind her.
What Sally and George do have in like manner is the fact that they both want to be the focal point of attention. Sally at her graduation and George likes putting on his General's uniform and being paraded around individuals, particularly pretty ladies (vulgar want).
He is also partial to enlightening individuals concerning how he attended the film première and was treated like a star. It is lost on both Sally and George that he was fundamentally utilized by the attention agent as a prop to advance the film and ironically Sally is as liable as the exposure agent of treating her grandfather as a prop or living relic. There are no undeniable indications of affection from Sally for her grandfather. In the event that anything having him at her graduation is more to advance her (image) and her idea of her family history.
O'Connor plays on the theme of image again by presenting Sally's nephew John Wesley. Sally trusts that by having John Wesley in his khaki outfit (Boy Scout) he'll compliment George on the stage at her graduation (which thusly Sally accepts will make her look great). Another important thing about the presentation of John Wesley is that if Sally lives in the past and George in the present there is no questioning that John Wesley speaks to what's to come.
This point is emphasized at the graduation when instead of carrying George into the auditorium, Sally finds George and John Wesley outside by a Coca Cola candy machine. At the time the story is set, coin operated Coca Cola candy machines would have been a relatively new innovation and by associating John Wesley with the candy machine O'Connor may recommend that John Wesley symbolizes what's to come. READ MORE...
