Mit Patel Ms. Rogers English 1102 March 8, 2018 A Flaw of Perception George R. R. Martin once said, “In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.” The concept of determining good and evil is beyond complicated. In human beings, good and evil are like liquid. People are the combination of both. There is no definitive when it comes to determining good and evil. People determine good and evil based on their perception. People perceive things differently, recognizing a certain situation in an infinite way. In the story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” O’Connor’s use of foil makes the reader aware that there is no definitive good or evil, but only a flaw of perception. In the story, “A Good …show more content…
The grandmother lies about a secret panel to convince her son to take her where she wants to go. (Desmond 133). The grandmother’s lying and selfishness lead the entire family to their deaths. Even when she finds out that the house is in Tennessee, she keeps quiet because she doesn’t want to look bad. The grandmother is racist toward a black kid who is standing in the door of a shack: “Little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do” (O’Connor, par. 20). Now, the reader can see that the grandmother is not a good lady. She is a liar, and selfish. The encounter with the Misfit reveals the grandmother’s true colors. She is trying to save her own life; not once does she tell the Misfit to spare her son’s life or her grandchildren’s lives. In the beginning, she says that “I[the grandmother] wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that[the Misfit] in it” (O’Connor, par. 1). When she finds out that the Misfit is going to kill her, she says to him “[Y]ou’re good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell,” just to save her life (O’Connor, par. 90). A criminal like the Misfit, who the grandmother doesn’t want any of her children to be around, suddenly becomes a good man in the eyes of the
Her desire to go to an old plantation she had been at before she didn’t realize that it wasn’t on their way to Florida but in actual Tennessee. By the moment she had realized they were in the wrong place she had kicked the basket which was holding the cat, and thus it sprung onto her sons face and caused them to crash. The dad gave in because they grandmother had stirred up their curiosity by telling them there was something secret there. When they were getting ready to get on the road toward Florida, she was the only one to dress up because she wanted to stand out in case she was on the road dead, they would had known that she was a lady. The time she was born in showed her character because she would referred to black people as the “n” word.
(1016). Although The Misfit comes across as genuine, the story later illustrates The Misfit as a sociopath. The grandmother throughout the story lies, is superficial and rather manipulative; changing this personality toward the end of the story, display what arguably could be the greatest ironic moment. The grandmother, at gunpoint is terrified for her life says “Why, you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!”
This notion of redemption is primarily seen with the Misfit and his character development away from the pleasure of a murderer. Had it not been for the collision of the Grandmother and his paths, redemption would have been unlikely, even unachievable, for him. O’Connor intended for this story to have a positive ending, despite the death toll that is present at the end of the story. With her Catholic beliefs, the small act of the Grandmother’s compassion and the Misfit’s questioning of his morals are rather impactful to each of their redemptions. Perhaps O’Connor’s religious views could be insightful to religious scholars on the question of whether human nature is
can be cause for the reader 's strongest moment of caring with the grandmother. His other main role in the story is to be the irresponsible son, the grandmother anger is constantly trying to avoid through careful manipulation. Grandmother makes odd decisions (brings the cat, dresses nice for a car accident).She believes she can out talk The Misfit and convince him not to kill her. Also, she doesn’t plead for anyone else’s life (selfish).She could’ve been good if she had a gun to her at all times (Misfit quote). The first thing that I learn about her is that she doesn 't want to go to Florida because she 's got relatives to see in Tennessee.
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.
The family stops for lunch at “The Tower and meets a character called Red Sammie Butts. This is where the grandmother strikes up a conversation with him. They talk about how it was back in the olden days when there were good people and Red Sammy states, “A good man is hard to find,” (Lawrence 410). The Misfit is the second major character in the story after the grandmother. The Misfit is an escaped criminal who comes in contact with the grandmother and her family when they get into an accident on the road.
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
The relation of the two readings to each other is that in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," incorporates the idea of the signified and signifiers. The grandma wearing the hat signifies in her mind that she is a lady and therefore better than everybody else. The hat signified superiority over everybody because it was a sign of wealth and dominance. The Misfit and his gang having the guns signified that they aren 't good people. The guns signify that they are willing to do whatever they want because the gun is a sign of power.
Viewing The Misfit as a tragic figure, we sympathize with his actions and feel remorse for who he has become. The readers see him as a victim and sympathize for his actions, including killing the elderly Grandmother. Although he is an awful person, because he is a male character, it is acceptable for him to have issues, but it is not acceptable for a woman to have any sort of issue. As the Misfits says, “She would have been a good woman...if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” (O’Connor), this suggests that the Grandmother was an awfully annoying woman, but if she had a man there to keep her in line, she would have been a decent
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.
As they shoot her family, she almost does not care but is trying to save her own life. She claims that he is a good man, “”Listen,” the grandmother almost screamed I know you’re a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from a nice family” (O’Connor, 477), but he is the farthest thing from a good man. He kills people and commits serious crimes.
The misfit gains awareness of human morals when he kills the grandmother and he says, "She would have been a good woman...if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life" (O 'Connor 1020), he then realized that she wasn 't all that good. O 'Connor did a good job of interpreting the grandmother as a way to put away the values of the old Southern America; she also interprets the Misfit as a type of common man who is defiantly not perfect which can a realistic version of the new Southern America. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find", the irritating grandmother cares more about matters such as her appearance and manners, she dressed her best for the car ride and the reason for her doing this is so that "In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would at once know that she was a lady." (O 'Connor 1010). The grandmother is a very selfish woman, the first thing she said to the Misfit is "You wouldn 't shoot a lady, would you?"
(6:27). O 'Connor presents both the view of the Misfit as a fellow human being in pain, and the feeling of love for him, as a gift from God. The grandmother as a human being, is prone towards evil and selfishness, so she could never have come to feel such love without God 's help, as this man was going to kill her. This moment of grace is incredibly important in the story. The Misfit kills the grandmother, withdrawing from her and what seems foreign to him (human compassion), but the grandmother already had her moment of redemption.
The Grandmother is the only member of the family still alive at this point. The misfit holds the grandmother at gunpoint. The grandmother uses faith as a way to escape death and pleads for the character to spare her life. “Pray!” The grandmother pleads pathetically.
The reality between the Misfit and the Grandmother are very different and from this viewpoint it seems as if the Grandmother is a more dishonest and unfaithful person when it comes to selfishness. The Misfit does not express selfishness, rather he equally treats himself as he would with the people that he murdered. With two distinct differences in reality, both show similar signs of