A convict and a grandmother are more alike than the common one may think. In Flannery O’Conner’s story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, demonstrates a similarity between the Misfit and the grandmother showing that good and evil are not the same in all individuals. O’Conner uses these certain characters to show the difference between good and bad, but in the end both the grandmother and the Misfit show a change in character. Flannery O’Conner’s catholic background has influenced all her stories. O’Conner’s family was one of the first to live in her hometown of Milledgeville, Georgia she also attended parochial school. As you can see her stories are surrounded by her belief. In today’s world societal morals and values have drastically crumbled making the world an unacceptable place. Flannery O’Conner’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” moves from a family comedy into a brutal revelation while on a family vacation. While on the way to find the homestead where grandmother grew up, she puts them down the wrong path right into a murderer’s escape route. The story gives way of foreshadowing the unfortunate ending in several instances. The first one is when Grandmother Bailey is trying to change the destination of the trip by showing her son the newspaper article about the man that escaped from the penitentiary. "Here this that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it”
One of O’Conner acclaimed work is “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” A family plans a vacation to Florida, but the Grandmother suggests to go to Tennessee, the place she grew up, instead because a serial killer, The Misfit, is in the loose headed to Florida. The family dismisses the Grandmother attempt and embark on a trip to Florida. The Grandmother, using her cunning ability, convinces the family to take a detour to visit an old house "with treasure". The family listens and heads toward the old house.
To begin, the unnamed, grandmother is a very inconsiderate person. At the beginning of the story, Bailey the grandmother’s son, plans a trip to Florida. Unfortunately, the selfish
Redemption is the act of being saved from acts of evil and sin. The debate of whether human nature is redeemable or not has been one to plaque religious scholars. In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, this question continues in the interactions between the characters; the most notable being the Grandmother of a rather horrible family and the Misfit, a murderer. While on a road trip, these two characters’ paths collide and lead to a rather unfortunate end where the Grandmother and her family are killed. While many readers believe the ending creates and overall negative tone of the story, some believe that there is a hope for redemption; the story’s author O’Connor who is a devoted Catholic included.
The first sentence, “The grandmother didn’t want to go to florida,” (Lawrence 406) gives the reader a glimpse into who the grandmother is as a person. She is depicted as a selfish and manipulative person. In the beginning of the story she was always trying to change her son Bailey’s mind to get the family to go to Tennessee instead of Florida. “The children have been to Florida before, you all ought to take them somewhere else for a change…” (Lawrence 406).
In the short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the author, Flannery O'Connor, demonstrates how a family vacation can quickly face a violent end, caused by a criminal known as “The Misfit.” Looking at the short story through a feminist point of view, one can quickly gather that O’Connor uses the traditional gender roles right from the beginning of the story. As reading the title, it automatically suggests the men in this short story are untrustworthy, not prevalent, and dangerous. With that being said, the female characters in this story are viewed in the eyes of how a woman should act.
In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor creates a story where the roles of good and evil blend together. In the short story, a family in the rural South gets caught up with a criminal named the Misfit after their wreck and they end up getting murdered. The clash between the grandmother and the Misfit highlights the religious aspects of the story and also O’Connor’s beliefs. Her stylistic traits of violence, distortion, and religion are used to convey a corrupt world that needs salvation. O’Connor’s trait of violence is used throughout to reveal the corrupt and criminal world that emanates the need for salvation.
The Role of Family in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, written by Flannery O’Connor is a short story that brings out mystery and cruelty. Manipulation plays a big role in this story by the grandmother. She tends to manipulate her family and tends to get her way by playing with them. Although the author wanted to give many perspectives of the grandmother, we as reader got our own views of her.
and they are all planning a trip to Florida. Although it has been decided that they are going to Florida, the grandmother is frustrated and tries to convince her son and his family that they should go to Tennessee instead since more family lives there and there are sights to see there. She also argues that going to Florida would only put the family in danger as there was a serial killer on the loose who goes by the name of “Misfit”. This, in itself, already raises a red flag for readers since they just so happen to be travelling to a place where a serial killer is running loose. Despite the grandmother’s protests against their trip to Florida, they all get in the car and begin their journey.
In a "Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O 'Connor, the contrast of good and evil is not as evident as it appears on the surface. The road that the family in the story travels symbolizes good up until the point the grandmother all but forces the family to make a detour onto a dirt road that leads to their demise. She is the unlikely antagonist in the story. A serial killer named, The Misfit, is the protagonist despite his homicidal actions. Both characters in the story help to illustrate how a relationship with God is perceived good and sacrilegious behavior is perceived evil.
In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, the author portrays the grandmother as self-centered, dishonest and prideful woman. The grandmother is an old, southern, Caucasian woman who describes herself as a good woman. Throughout the story, O’Connor shows how the grandmother’s pride, and selfishness leads her to unappreciated her family. She does not care about them, she only cares about herself and what will benefit her. The grandmother’s selfishness, judgmental actions, dishonesty put the family in danger.
In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” she uses writing skills such as symbolism and imagery to get across her different themes to the reader’s with plenty of room for self-interpretation. Though O’Connor’s work could be defined as cynical, she does an excellent job of writing in the third person with her uncomplicated structure of sentences leaving plenty of room for her character 's thoughts, feelings, and actions to get across the realism of our world. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is a battle between a grandmother with a rather artificial sense of goodness, and a criminal who symbolizes evil. The grandmother treats goodness as having good manners, and coming from a family of higher class, but at the end of the story comes to
The balance of what is good and what is bad is a rather controversial topic in the story "A Good Man is Hard to Find". Most notably, the characteristics of both the Grandmother and the Misfit. The Misfit portrays an immoral personality and seems to be the evil in the story while the grandmother is the innocent lady seeking to be the good in this story. However, the religious virtues effect both personas and in itself draws the line around them mutually as sinners. Both characters have a particular relationship with Jesus, a physical crisis crossed with a spiritual crisis and different conceptions of reality; thus, revealing how the portrayal of these characters are not what may seem.
“A Good Man is Hard to find”, was one of Ms. Flannery O’Connor’s well known story that shows what she is known for in her writing : violence, well thought characters with humor, and shows her Roman Catholic faith. Throughout the story, there are certain details that make the story what it seems to be than what Ms. O’Connor had to portray. Although it would be seen as a shocking violent murder plot all in one, there can be another side to the story as well. In the story of A Good Man is Hard to Find shows that people would think O’Connor was mocking religion, in actuality she was not. The characters in the story are used to expose the idea between good and evil and hypocrisy.
Flannery O’Connor is a renowned Southern author, noted for her gothic works and heavily Catholic themes. She focuses predominantly on racial tensions, morality, and divine grace. The religious and moral themes of her short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, converge on the character of the grandmother. Despite the self-proclamations of fulfilling what it means to be a Southern lady, Grandmother holds a superficial grasp of her religion. Throughout the story, the Grandmother never truly changed, only her ostensible actions did.
The story opens with a man named Bailey who is going on a trip with his family to Florida. However, his mother had other plans and becomes the "manipulative grandmother lecturing her apathetic son" (Sparrow). At first she tries to convince her son to change the trip destination saying ""(O 'Connor). It might be inferred that she meant well by warning Bailey about the prison escapee traveling in the same direction. Unfortunately, later in the story the reader finds out that .