Adlerian Reading of Everyday Use by Alice Walker and Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor

OpenAlex İngilizce

The childhood experiences of the characters and their relationship with their family members are the determinants of their life processes in the short stories Everyday Use and Good Country People. These dynamics and their different behavioral patterns bring to mind the Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler, which focuses on the struggle of individuals for perfection stemming from the inferiority complexes of childhood. Adler emphasizes the inferiority complex present in every individual and the superiority complex as a safeguard tendency to compensate for it. The illiterate rural mothers’ tolerance toward their educated daughters in both stories might be evaluated from an Adlerian perspective since both are deprived of self-confidence. Within this context, the settings and the dynamics shaping the cultural norms, as well as heredity, are also significant. This paper applies Adler’s theoretical framework to critically examine the protagonists’ psychological motivations and behavior patterns, offering a comparative analysis enriched with scholarly perspective and theoretical contextualization.