A Stroke of Good Fortune

Last updated
"A Stroke of Good Fortune"
by Flannery O'Connor
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre(s) Southern Gothic
Published in Tomorrow
Publication typeLiterary magazine
Media typePrint
Publication dateAugust 1949

"A Stroke of Good Fortune", originally published as "A Woman on the Stairs", is a short story by the American author Flannery O'Connor about a woman who discovers to her disappointment and disbelief that she is pregnant. [1]

Contents

Publication History

The story first appeared with the title "A Woman on the Stairs" published in the August 1949 issue of the American Tomorrow magazine. The work was permanently retitled as "A Stroke of Good Fortune" where it appeared in Spring 1953 issue of Shenandoah magazine, and was published as the fourth story in the author's short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories that first appeared in 1955. [2]

Plot summary

The story begins as Ruby Hill, a woman who has lately been suffering from minor illness, enters the door of her apartment building after shopping at the grocery store. Ruby begins to work her way up the stairs to her apartment, stopping frequently to catch her breath. Along the way she reflects on aspects of her life, including her younger brother Rufus, who has recently returned from fighting in the European Theater and is now living with Ruby and her husband. She thinks disparagingly about her brother, and his failure to change much from their rural upbringing. She also thinks about her husband, Bill Hill, a salesman for "Miracle Products" who has seemed particularly happy lately; about her age of 34; and about her general dislike for children. When she sits down on a step to catch her breath she accidentally sits on a toy pistol, which she recognizes as belonging to Hartley Gilfeet, an unruly six-year-old boy who lives in the building. She also thinks about Madam Zoleeda, a fortune teller who has recently read her palm and claimed that "a long illness" would lead to "a stroke of good fortune."

On the second floor Ruby is accosted by Mr. Jerger, a 78-year-old former teacher who asks her if she knows whose birthday it is. When she does not, he drags her into his apartment and shows her a book about Ponce de Leon and tells her about his search for the legendary Fountain of Youth. When she excuses herself from Mr. Jerger, and continues up the stairs, she becomes out of breath after only five steps and wonders for an instant if she has cancer. By the time she reaches the apartment of her friend Laverne Watts on the third floor she is nauseated and disoriented. After Ruby enters her friend's apartment and collapses into a chair, Laverne begins to tease her about being pregnant, and asks after her brother Rufus. Ruby does not like Laverne's interest in her brother, and denies the possibility that she is pregnant, claiming that her husband would never "slip up". Finally, however, Ruby begins to admit to herself the possibility that she is pregnant. Suddenly, she is startled by a loud noise coming from below, and when she peers down the banister she sees Mr. Jerger fighting and yelling with Hartley Gilfeet. As she stares down the stairwell, she says the words "Good Fortune, Baby" and feels a little roll in her stomach.

Background

O'Connor conceived the story during the early stages of working on her first novel, Wise Blood . The character of Ruby's younger brother Rufus later grew into Wise Blood's Hazel Motes, and Ruby's neighbor, Laverne Watts, was an early rendition of Wise Blood's Leora Watts. [3] [4] The story was first published as "The Woman on the Stairs" in the August 1949 issue of Tomorrow, and was later published as "A Stroke of Good Fortune" in the spring 1953 issue of Shenandoah . By 1955 O'Connor had revised it so as to include it in the short story collection A Good Man is Hard to Find . [5]

Criticism

John McDermott notes that "A Stroke of Good Fortune" has been "dismissed by most critics as one of the least effective of Flannery O'Connor's short stories." [6] O'Connor herself found it too farcical to support the serious moral implications of Ruby's behavior. [7]

Whitt and McDermott agree that Ruby is in denial about being pregnant, and that everyone else in the story knows. Whitt points out that at the beginning of the story Ruby has brought home four cans of beans from the grocery store, as a way to explain away the kicks of the baby as simply gas pains. [8] On the other hand, Bill Hill's new look of contentment, Mr. Jerger's coy look when he tells Ruby to ask Bill whose birthday it is, and Laverne's open teasing all point to the fact that everyone else in the building knows. [9]

Whitt called the story "a collection of obvious life signs placed in a context of death images". She points to phallic symbols like the pistol Ruby sits on, and the fact that Hartley Gilfeet is from Rodman. She also points out references to menstruation. The flights of stairs in Ruby's apartment, for example, each contain 28 steps. Ruby, in contrast, is described as a funeral urn. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flannery O'Connor</span> American writer (1925–1964)

Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.

<i>A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories</i> 1955 short story collection by Flannery OConnor

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by American author Flannery O'Connor. The collection was first published in 1955. The subjects of the short stories range from baptism to serial killers to human greed and exploitation. The majority of the stories include jarring violent scenes that make the characters undergo a spiritual change. The short stories commonly have tones of Catholicism related to life and death scenarios. For instance, in the story "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" the villain states, "She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

<i>Everything That Rises Must Converge</i> 1965 short story collection by Flannery OConnor

Everything That Rises Must Converge is a collection of short stories written by Flannery O'Connor during the final decade of her life. The collection's eponymous story derives its name from the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The collection was published posthumously in 1965 and contains an introduction by Robert Fitzgerald. Of the volume's nine stories, seven had been printed in magazines or literary journals prior to being collected, including three that won O. Henry Awards: "Greenleaf" (1957), "Everything That Rises Must Converge" (1963), and "Revelation" (1965). "Judgment Day" is a dramatically reworked version of "The Geranium", which was one of O'Connor's earliest publications and appeared in her graduate thesis at the University of Iowa. "Parker's Back", the collection's only completely new story, was a last-minute addition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Revelation (short story)</span> Short story by Flannery OConnor

"Revelation" is a Southern Gothic short story by author Flannery O'Connor about the delivery and effect of a revelation to a sinfully proud, self-righteous, middle-aged, middle class, rural, white Southern woman that her confidence in her own Christian salvation is an error. The protagonist receives divine grace by accepting God's judgment that she is unfit for salvation, by learning that the prospect for her eventual redemption improves after she receives a vision of Particular Judgment, where she observes the souls of people she detests are the first to ascend to Heaven and those of people like herself who "always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right" are last to ascend and experience purgation by fire on the way up.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A Good Man Is Hard to Find (short story)</span> Short story by Flannery OConnor

"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is a Southern gothic short story first published in 1953 by author Flannery O'Connor who, in her own words, described it as "the story of a family of six which, on its way driving to Florida [from Georgia], is slaughtered by an escaped convict who calls himself the Misfit".

The bibliography of Flannery O'Connor includes two novels, more than thirty short stories, and several collections.

"The Geranium" is an early short story by the American author Flannery O'Connor. It was first published in Accent: A Quarterly of New Literature in 1946 and is one of the six stories included in O'Connor's 1947 master's thesis The Geranium: A Collection of Short Stories. It later appeared in the 1971 collection The Complete Stories.

"The Turkey" is an early short story by the American author Flannery O'Connor. It is one of the six stories included in O'Connor's 1947 master's thesis The Geranium: A Collection of Short Stories and was published in Mademoiselle in 1948 as "The Capture." It later appeared in the 1971 collection The Complete Stories and a modified version appeared in her Complete Works in 1988 as An Afternoon in the Woods.

"The River" is a Southern gothic short story by the American author Flannery O'Connor that was first published in 1953 about a very young boy who is taken by his babysitter to a preacher at a Christian healing where he is baptized in a river, and, the next day, runs away from home to the site of his baptism and baptizes himself, and then is taken by the river to find the Kingdom of Christ, as told by the preacher, and drowns.

"The Life You Save May Be Your Own" is a short story by the American author Flannery O'Connor. It is one of the 10 stories in her short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find, published in 1955.

"Judgement Day" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was published in 1965 in her short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge. O'Connor finished the collection during her final battle with lupus. She died in 1964, just before her final book was published. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work. "Judgement Day" contains many similarities to one of O'Connor's earliest short stories, "The Geranium."

"All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal."—Flannery O'Connor

"The Lame Shall Enter First" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It appeared first in The Sewanee Review in 1962 and was published in 1965 in her short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge. O'Connor finished the collection during her final battle with lupus. She died in 1964, just before her final book was published. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work.

"The Displaced Person" is a novella by Flannery O'Connor. It was published in 1955 in her short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work and her own family hired a displaced person after World War II.

"Good Country People" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was published in 1955 in her short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work. Many considered this to be one of her greatest stories.

"The Partridge Festival" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was published in 1961. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work.

"A Late Encounter with the Enemy" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was written in 1953 and published in the September 1953 issue of Harper’s Bazaar, appearing later in her short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955). It is her only story dealing with the American Civil War. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work.

"A Temple of the Holy Ghost" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was written in 1953 and published in 1955 in her short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find and is one of O'Connor's few explicitly Catholic stories. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work, but more commonly described rural Southern Protestants as her main characters.

"A View of the Woods" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was completed in the fall of 1956 and was first published in the Fall 1957 issue of Partisan Review. It was later republished in The Best American Short Stories of 1958, and again in 1965, in O'Connor's short story collection, Everything That Rises Must Converge. O'Connor had first submitted it to Harper's Bazaar, although she correctly expected that the story was "a little grim" for the Harper's readership and would be rejected. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work; "A View of the Woods" contains numerous references to the Christian tradition. It explores the ideas of modernism and materialism pitted against salvation.

"The Comforts of Home" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was written in 1960 and published in 1965 in her short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work.

"A Circle in the Fire" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor. It was written in 1954 and published in 1955 in her short story collection A Good Man is Hard to Find. A devout Roman Catholic, O'Connor often used religious themes in her work.

References

  1. ↑ Richard Giannone, Flannery O'Connor, hermit novelist (University of Illinois Press, 2000)
  2. ↑ O'Connor, Flannery (1971). "Notes". The Complete Stories. ISBN   9781466829022.
  3. ↑ Whitt 1995, p. 56
  4. ↑ Orvell 1991, p 72
  5. ↑ Whitt 1995, p. 56
  6. ↑ McDermott 1980, p 13
  7. ↑ Giannone 2000, p 75
  8. ↑ Whitt 1995, p. 57
  9. ↑ McDermott 1980, pp 13-14
  10. ↑ Whitt 1995, p. 57

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.