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A Good Man Is Hard To Find Character Analysis

1526 Words7 Pages

In Flannery O 'Connor 's eccentric short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find the reader is introduced to her fundamental theme of Identity through a typical southern family. O’Connor’s exceptional use of fictional elements such as characterization, point of view, and setting further develop this theme in her work. She does so by familiarizing the use of violence, humor, and salvation along with point of view and setting to create a deeper connection between her work and the reader. O 'Connor 's typical use of violence and humor in her literary work broadens the characterization of the grandmother and the misfit throughout her story. She uses these elements in an effort to establish the characterization of her two main characters through the …show more content…

For example, Bailey is wearing "a yellow sport shirt with bright blue parrots designed in it," and after the car accident, the narrator comments that Bailey 's "face was as yellow as the shirt." As he is being taken away to be killed, Bailey 's "eyes were as blue and intense as the parrots in his shirt." The grandmother offers the Misfit one of her son 's shirts immediately preceding the shot that kills him, and the Misfit puts on the parrot shirt Bailey was wearing after killing him, which the grandmother is too traumatized to acknowledge. O’Connor creates a terrible event that occurs to an innocent family and finds a way to develop a sadistic comical effect that leaves the reader with confusion whether to laugh or feel mournful. The salvation of many characters in A Good Man Is Hard to Find is seen through the element of religion. O 'Connor designates this tactic to use religion as a tool to radically challenge the goodness of the human heart. This is typical of Flannery O 'Connor 's fiction, her short story A Good Man is Hard to Find is an observation on the universal demand for the grace and hope of Jesus Christ, as O’Connor introduces characters that are extremely ill-mannered and

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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.

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