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A Good Man Is Hard To Find Grandmother Analysis

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“A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a short story written by Flannery O’Connor. The story is delivered in third person limited omniscient with the grandmother being the central character. Throughout the story the grandmother sees herself as a trustworthy lady with superior morals, although the reader examines her as a selfish and sneaky manipulator. Because the grandmother views herself one way but the reader understands her true nature, the result is dramatic irony. The grandmother views her self highly through the story. One way she articulates this is by the way she dresses like a lady, “Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her necklace she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead …show more content…

In the beginning she tries to manipulate Baily into going to Tennessee for her own reasons. She even goes behinds Baileys back to bring the cat along on the vacation because she was afraid that, “the cat might brush against one of the gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself”(544). The grandmother can even be classified as a liar. She lies to Baily by claiming, “There was a secret panel in this house, not telling the truth but wishing that she were”(547-548). The largest flaw the grandmother processes is selfishness. From beginning that she is introduced to the final breath she takes, she only considers her own ego. She causes the collision by bringing the cat in the car and thus allows the family to be caught by the misfit. During her encounter with the misfit she only begs mercy for her own life. It is not until the gunfire sounds in the woods that she calls for Baily. With the final moments of the grandmother’s life she recites many times of Jesus and the power that prayer can bring to misfit’s life. She only mentions religion when she is faced with the inevitable

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