There was an old lady who always loved to talk about everything, to say a few words about everything, and always wanted everyone to do what she wanted. In the end, the old lady also sent the family to Huangquan Road because of nagging. This is the plot of the novel "Good Guys Are Hard to Find".
In the story, the family prepares to go on vacation to Florida, but the old lady wants to visit her family in Tennessee. She did not change her family's decision on the grounds that some of the fugitives had fled to Florida. For the sake of face and maintaining the status of the family, the old lady could only set off with her family, but on the way, she kept talking about topics that no one wanted to hear. The last family encountered the fugitives and were killed one by one.
The character of the old lady was very clear from the beginning, and on the day of departure, the author wrote:
The old lady was the first to get into the car, ready to stop. She placed a large black travel bag in the corner, which looked like the head of a hippopotamus. There was also a basket hidden under the travel bag, and inside was a cat, Piedy Sean. She didn't want to leave her alone at home for three days, he would want to kill her, and maybe accidentally touch the gas switch and suffocate to death. Her son, Burleigh, would certainly not want to take a cat into the motel.
This old lady not only loves to make small calculations: in order to meet old acquaintances, she tries to persuade the family to change their original plans to go to Tennessee; because she is reluctant to abandon the cat, she secretly hides it in the basket and takes it to the car. Everything is given priority to their own comfort and convenience, and the thoughts and feelings of others are ranked last.
Regarding the old lady's attire, the book reads:
The old lady wore a straw navy sailor hat with a bouquet of white violets on the brim, and wore a navy blue dress with small white dots printed on it, and the neckline cuffs were rolled with a white cicada wing yarn with lace, and the neckline was specially pinned with a violet made of cloth, which hid a sachet. ”
While she was dressed up like the protagonist at the banquet, the child's mother was still wearing the same casual pants as yesterday, and she still wore a square green turban on her head.
The reason why the old lady dressed like this was that in case of a car accident, she died on the road, and everyone could recognize her as a tasteful wife at a glance. Vanity and selfishness became very obvious labels on the old lady. For the two things of life and appearance, the old lady is more concerned about her appearance.
Apart from nagging, selfishness, and vanity, the old lady had little sympathy. As the car drove past a field, she saw a black kid in the field without pants and said: "So cute." The fields, the shacks, the children, the old lady felt that this was a painting, and if she could paint, she must paint this scene.
In the face of the hard life of the child, the old lady thought of her own entertainment, and she even explained to her grandchildren: "He may not have pants to wear at all." The blacks in the country are not like us, and what we have is not necessarily what they do. ”
It is such an old lady who always says in her mouth: Under the wind of the world, good people are difficult to find. She herself has never been a good person, but has always wanted others to be good people and have always helped her. She was worried about running into the fugitive, but when she met, she blurted out, "You are the fugitive... You're a good person."
"Good people are hard to find", but bad people can meet unexpectedly. In order to save her life, the old lady said a basket of words against her heart, and Jesus, faith, religion, and love were all used as chips by her, one by one, in an attempt to reform the fugitives and not to kill. Ignoring her son's obstruction, she kept chattering with the fugitives.
After the family was killed one after another, the old lady was also hit by three bullets for repetition, blindness, and hypocritical flattery and fell to the side of the road.
The author of the story "Good Guys Are Hard to Find", Flannery O'Connor, is a Southern writer whose work has a Southern Gothic style and relies heavily on regional backgrounds and grotesque characters.
Whether good people are hard to find or not, no one can give an answer. Good people may be everyone around us, maybe not anyone around us. The old lady in this story, selfish and vain, superficial and unsympathetic, is not a fatal flaw.
But if she didn't act clever when she met the fugitive, if she didn't keep her mouth shut, maybe the fugitive wouldn't treat her and her family. Because this fugitive was not a heinous person before this.
The storyline is interlocked, and reading this book is like opening the door of a secret room, and the final "treasure" can only be known until the end.
Good People Are Hard to Find is a story about evil, atonement, and salvation. Interested friends, you can click "go to see" below, direct purchase.
Good Guy Hard to Find O'Henry Short Story Award ¥37.7 purchase