A Good Man Is Hard To Find

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” is one of the short story written by Flannery O’Connor. The story opens as a man named Bailey wants to take his family (his wife, a baby, and two kids, John Wesley and June Star) for a vacation to Florida but the grandmother (bailey’s mother) wants to go to east Tennessee instead of Florida to visit some of her connections. She tries to persuade her son to change his mind using the news of escape of the Misfit, a prisoner who has escaped from the prison and headed to Florida. Bailey does not take her seriously as he understand her motives and he refuses to go to Tennessee. The next morning, the grandmother gets ready in her best outfit and secretly brings her cat, Pitty Sing. They start their journey from Georgia to Florida. During the trip the kids play games and the grandmother tells stories to the kids. They stop at the Tower

The author describes the car as “a big black battered hearse like automobile” (hearse like means the vehicle which carries coffin) that foreshadows the car is bringer the death or the horrible ending of the family. When the grandmother says “you would not shoot a lady, would you?”(382) the Misfit pointed the toe of his shoes into the ground and made a little hole and then covered it up again and said “I would hate to have to.” It symbolizes as if he is preparing to dig a grave and bury her in it. The grandmother realizes this and she starts to pray. Further, when the grandmother asks the Misfit, “what did you do to get sent up to the penitentiary that first time?” The Misfit replies, “Turn to the right, it was a wall. Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling, look down it was a floor. I forget what I done, lady.” Although he was explaining about the jail, the description implies of a small, tight grave exactly what kind of punishment the grandmother is going to