O'Connor "Good Man Hard to Find"

The women in some of O’Connor’s short stories do not “deserve sympathy for synthesizing aspects of both gender roles” as some critics say, because they are not trying to balance their lifestyles to survive; rather they are manipulating their surroundings to gain an advantage in life. Mrs. Shortley uses her friendship with Mrs. McIntyre to refresh her self-esteem just as the peacock uses its colors and spots to gain attention and affection. The old woman uses her daughter’s handicap as a crutch for her age as Mr. Shiftlet uses other’s trust to silhouette his broken body and soul. The grandmother takes advantage of her old age and uses it as an excuse for attention as the Misfit uses his mysteriousness as an excuse for crime. These women’s tools in fighting their expected roles in life are voice and stature for Mrs. Shortley, pity and grief for the old woman, and attention for the grandmother. Always in the right place at the right time to take attention away from those who deserve it is Mrs. Shortley in “The Displaced Person.” With her snide remarks about the “niggers” who “don’t do nothing but steal,” she seems to always be defending her right as a worker for Mrs. McIntyre. The first sighting of the displaced persons was a spectacle for Mrs. Shortley as she realized the people did not look like aliens or animals, but were in fact human. Better yet, these new workers had some better qualities. The husband turned out to be handier for working the farming equipment, the son a useful translator, and the daughters more beautiful than Mrs. Shortley’s. Of course after seeing these traits and specialties of the foreign people, Mrs. Shortley does not accept the foreigners, in fact, “every time Mr. Guizac smiled, Europe stretched out in Mrs. Shortley’s imagination, mysterious and evil, the devil’s experiement station” (O’Connor, 211) . She instead tries to find a way to discredit them for her own benefit. Although Mrs. Shortley has no authority over anything in her