Sunday, September 9, 2012

What is the significance of John Wesley's and June Star's names in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"?

John Wesley was the founder of Methodism.  This story is a religious allegory, and he represents the unbeliever that O'Connor thought would go to hell.  The real John Wesley was almost lynched in Georgia, so there's a funny part where John Wesley hangs his head out of the car window and says, "Let's go through Georgia fast!"


June Star is the first "star" that rises in summer, Venus. Go look at the sky on an early summer evening and you'll see the "star" which is actually a planet.  Another name for the June star is "Lucifer," which means "Light bearer."  This was the angel who defied God and fell from heaven to become Lord of Hell, or Satan.  So here you have two names clearly representing evil, those who fought against the "true" Catholic religion, including the belief in"grace."  The whole story, as explained by O'Connor in her own writings and lectures, is a religious allegory about a moment of Grace that God grants to people, forgiving them all their sins in a moment.   The last line, "She would have been a good woman if there had been someone there to shoot her every day of her life," means you and me, and our faith, is tested daily:  the gun is our faith, and if we truly believed we would pay for our sins, we would act as if a gun was pointed at us every minute of every day, that gun being God's judgment.  All of us would be good if that fear was truly in our hearts, according to O'Connor.

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