ipl-logo

A Good Man Is Hard To Find Essay

474 Words2 Pages

If a person is manipulative and their actions are paid for with people’s lives, would they be considered good? In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor the grandmother shows qualities that ask that question. Three reasons why are the following, she is manipulative, selfish, and fake. There is no good man or good woman in this story. The grandmother manipulates her son into going to an old plantation that she visited when she was young. She does this by saying to the kids “There was a secret panel in this house, she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing she were” (935). If there was a secret panel actually in the house that would be really cool, but there isn’t one. She says this so that the kids are interested. They whine and complain, begging their dad to go to the house. Eventually he decides to go to the house to get them to be quiet and quit complaining. The only reason the grandmother does this is because she wants to go to that house. Like mentioned in the last paragraph briefly, she is very selfish. The …show more content…

The only time she is religious is when she is threatened by death. She mentions Jesus and praying a lot at the end, saying “If you would pray, Jesus would help you” (940). Throughout the whole story she doesn’t mention her religion, but suddenly when she is facing death she suddenly becomes religious. If she would have acted like she did at the end of the story throughout the whole story, she would have been a good woman. She is a fake religious person, only believing when she might die. There are many good people in life, but the grandmother was not one of those. She was manipulative, selfish, and fake. People paying for someone else’s mistakes isn’t good. Her being manipulative and selfish cost her life and her whole families lives. Throughout this whole story there is neither a good man nor a good

Show More
Related

  • Commentary On A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    557 Words  | 3 Pages

    The family include; grandmother, mother, father, and two children. A family member, grandmother, expect to face the misfit who has been released from jail but granny doesn’t sound convincing. Grandmother show that she preferred to visit Tennessee instead of Florida, “The children have never been to Florida before.” Society expect people like granny to be annoying to little kids or grandmothers not approve most of the stuff grandkids cooperate in.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Cathedral And A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    1005 Words  | 5 Pages

    Although it may seem like the grandmother is helping the family by trying to convince The Misfit that he is a good man, she is only doing it for “purely selfish reasons” (Mitchell). She has no reaction and is cold-hearted when her family members are murdered. Another reason why she is selfish is because of how she believes that she deserves special treatment because she is a “lady”. In the beginning of the story, O’Connor makes it a point to illustrate how lady-like the grandmother is dressed compared to the mother by stating that anyone who saw her “would know at once that she was a lady” (617). The grandmother wants to make it clear that she is a lady and has expectations to be treated like royalty solely because of her

    Read More

  • A Good Man Is Hard To Find Psychopath Analysis

    1097 Words  | 5 Pages

    The grotesque psychopathic nature of the characters in Flannery O’Connor’s, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” ironically shows how a good man does not truly exist through the revelation and proclamation of what characteristics a good man possess. In the story The Misfit shows characteristics of a psychopath by escaping prison and killing an innocent family. However, The Misfit isn’t the only character in the short story to show psychopathic tendencies. The grandma also shows some characteristics of a psychopath because she does not care or show remorse for her family who was brutally murdered

    Read More

  • A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

    688 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, there is no doubt the reader should consider the grandmother a villain. Throughout the story, it is easy to assume the grandmother would eventually lead the family to some sort of downfall. The grandmother has many traits that make her a villain, and through her judgemental nature, selfish acts, and inability to stop talking, she leads her family and herself to their death. Throughout the story it is obvious that the grandmother is very judgemental of people and seems to consider herself as better than everyone.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

    1371 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the 1953 short story titled “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, readers are given a glimpse of what the end of the story may look like through use of foreshadowing, symbolism, and other literary techniques. Although the story looks to be an innocent story of a family who travels to Florida for vacation at the start of it, readers soon find out that the story has a darker twist to it. This family trip turns violent and this gruesome ending can easily represent the violence taking place in America during the time this story was written by O’Connor and even today. The short story starts off with a family of six- parents, a grandmother, and three children-

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Good Man Is Hard To Find

    255 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Good Man Is Hard To Find Selfishness Essay

    1559 Words  | 7 Pages

    It is the grandmother’s selfishness that leads to the death of her family. The short story “A good Man is Hard to Find” teaches us that nothing good come from being selfish. Being selfish has plenty of consequences. One of them is that when you are selfish you or your loved once suffer. In the short story by O’Connor, the grandmother’s selfishness leads to the death of her family.

    Read More

  • A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

    977 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” the grandmother embodies a multitude of negative qualities. She focuses on her outward appearance, including physically looking like a “lady” (370) and acting supercilious towards her family. Her obsession with her outward appearance causes her to neglect her inward character. Therefore, she behaves arrogantly and selfishly, with no regard for her family and their feelings. The grandmother’s encounter with The Misfit makes her recognize her obsession with her outward appearance.

    Read More

  • Gary Soto Behind Grandma's House Analysis

    1042 Words  | 5 Pages

    The speaker’s grandmother is originally presented in a way that causes the ending to be a surprise, saying, “Her apron flapping in a breeze, her hair mussed, and said, ‘Let me help you’” (21-22). The imagery of the apron blowing in the wind characterizes her as calm, and when she offers to help her grandson, she seems to be caring and helpful. Once she punches the speaker, this description of her changes entirely from one of serenity and care to a sarcastic description with much more meaning than before. The fact that the grandmother handles her grandson’s behavior in this witty, decisive way raises the possibility that this behavior is very common and she has grown accustomed to handling it in a way that she deems to be effective; however, it is clearly an ineffective method, evidenced by the continued behavior that causes her to punish the speaker in this manner in the first place.

    Read More

  • Southern Gothic Elements In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    844 Words  | 4 Pages

    No one would have thought that the idyllic Southern life style could be turned into a Southern nightmare. In O 'Connors "A Good Man is Hard to Find" that is precisely what happens. " A Good Man is Hard to Find" is set in Southern America. This story has many tenets comparable to that of Southern Gothic fiction. Southern Gothic writing emphasizes on abnormal character and unusual events to create an unsettling portray of life in Southern America.

    Read More

  • Symbolism In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    1254 Words  | 6 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Grandmother And The Misfit's A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    1601 Words  | 7 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Grandmother Rhetorical Analysis Essay

    1037 Words  | 5 Pages

    To briefly state, the storyline begins with a seemingly innocent start with a mother attempts into persuading her son to visit her beloved state of Tennessee instead of the trip to Florida. Yet furthering into the story the reader begins to notice how the grandmother carries herself and abides by the way she believes a good woman should dress and act. Thus furthering on into the plot the reader becomes aware of an underlying sense of foreshadowing when the grandmother leads the family to the wrong plantation and ultimately they end up confronting the misfit himself. The reader is able to feel this foreshadowing by the grandmother belief in being a lady to be moral, the actions of the grandmother to keep her safe from the misfit, and the way

    Read More

  • Manipulation In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    786 Words  | 4 Pages

    To give one example of manipulation, Flannery O'Connor, Georgia State author of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", writes that "You wouldn't shoot a lady, would you?"(421). The grandmother is trying to make the misfit vulnerable, even though he has already killed everyone but her. She's begging the misfit for her life. Every one of those people would still be alive if it was not for the grandmother. She did not have much hope left anyways for her life because she annoyed the misfit with her ugly and selfish ways.

    Read More

  • Good Man Is Hard To Find Response

    1016 Words  | 5 Pages

    In her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor introduces the reader to a world of family issues, danger, and murder. The story was written in 1955 during a period of social and racial unrest in the southern United States. Mostly, the story follows O 'Connor 's basic Southern Gothic writing style. A work that is "cold and dispassionate, as well as almost absurdly stark and violent" (Galloway). While the quote gives major insight into the theme of the story, it does not offer a glimpse into O 'Connor 's real message of the story.

    Read More

More about A Good Man Is Hard To Find Essay

Open Document