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Abstract
We all eventually come to a recognition that we are a part of something greater than ourselves. By the very act of living, we participate in larger stories of infinite number: the stories of our families, of our communities, of our cultures, of our time. In writing the following pages, I became a part of a larger conversation about Flannery O’Connor, who herself was aware of greater truths surrounding her own life and work. She was certain of the story in which she played a part, and she was both confident and humble in her role. Of course, it is not her dedication to her purpose that leaps from the pages of her fiction but rather an original vein of literature that most of her biographers and critics place within the American Southern Gothic tradition. My initial inquiry began with the recognition of what I deemed to be O’Connor’s style in two particular films: Fargo (1996) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017). While a description of “Gothic” might suit both films given their deranged characters and grotesque worlds, I found them evoking O’Connor’s methods and themes specifically; as with her work, the effect of each was more akin to a slap in the face than the slow, insidious, realizations of a Gothic tale. She has created something distinctly different from her predecessors and contemporaries, and when drawn upon for inspiration this brand of storytelling cannot be mistaken. As this idea has developed throughout my research and writing, I have remained most interested in the particular influence of O’Connor’s oft-examined short work “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” on current filmmakers as we—as society, culture, humanity—continue our search for a “good man” in the increasingly chaotic world. What transpired in the process led me to an exploration of whether O’Connor and the filmmakers who cite her influence differ in their postmodern views of the immutable ideas of goodness, evil, violence, and justice in the world; whether defining such concepts is only possible by defining their opposites; and whether an ultimate definition is possible at all.