The short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, is about a grandmother, her son Bailey, his wife, and their kids, the baby, John Wesley, and June Star, who are getting ready to go on a vacation. The family has a disagreement as to where they want to go between Florida and Tennessee, the grandmothers argument being that The Misfit, a killer, is heading towards Florida. On the day of the trip, the grandmother is the first one in the car and secretly brings her cat. During the car ride, the grandmother is constantly talking and telling stories; she tells them about a house she visited as a kid. The children get excited and want to visit it, and Bailey reluctantly goes in the direction the grandmother pointed out. It’s after …show more content…
He knows that he is not a good man. He believes that the punishment he has received didn’t fit his crime. The Misfit also believes that the world would be better off if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. When the grandmother and him were talking about religion he Although he is not a good man, he does feels a bit of compassion for the grandmother when Bailey makes her cry, he says “Lady… don’t you get upset. Sometimes a man says things he don’t mean. I don’t reckon he meant to talk to you thataway.” But The Misfit also shows no remorse when he shoots the grandmother in the chest after she touches him. The conflict symbolizes redemption, The Misfit symbolizes the evil that some must go through to reach the understanding of their own mistakes. The talk the grandmother and The Misfit have between them is mainly about religion, and what was done in the past, the talk leads to the grandmother having sympathy for him. The grandmothers moment of grace causes a terrible reaction from The Misfit. After The Misfit kills the grandmother he says “It’s no real pleasure in life,” which I think shows that the grandmother may have had some kind of impact on him in there discussion. In the final moments of life, redemption could always be reached. In the last moments of her life, the grandmother was a good woman, she showed compassion and care in a time of danger and
Flannery O 'Connor was born in Savannah Georgia on March 25, 1925, as an only child. Her mother had to assume most of the responsibility of raising Flannery because her father died of lupus when she was fifteen. Flannery attended the Georgia State College for Women, and then went to the State University in Iowa where she received her master in Fine Arts (Gooch). Flannery’s life was very short, died at the age of 39, as she struggled with lupus, the same incurable disease that claimed the life of her father. O’Conner family was devoutly Catholic, which would influence her work and her outlook in life a great deal.
Eli Conklin Mrs. Polesiak English 12 AP 12 February 2023 “A Good Man is Hard to Find” Psychological Lens In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, the story reveals the author’s belief and commentary that every person has some capability to be impacted and changed by good. The story works through the grandmother’s comments on the nature of man, in which she originally acts as if modern generations are evil and lack goodness, but she eventually is shown to believe that everyone has some goodness in them. To begin, she is largely pessimistic about human nature and acts in a superior way when she talks to Red Sam about the tendencies of people. Her comment that “‘People are certainly not nice like they used to be’”
This ending is ironic considering that the grandmother never makes any reference to being religious before facing death. Also, she continuously reminds the Misfit of the fact that she is a lady in the hopes that it will have the same meaning to him as it does to her. However, not once does she try to spare the rest of her family. She is too busy groveling for her own life to give her family a second thought, even after the first gunshots have gone off. In the face of death, the grandmother constantly tries to convince the Misfit that he is a good man, even after he has ordered his men to kill her family, and presumably many others.
Even though human nature is flawed within Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, there is a chance for redemption near the story’s ending. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the Grandmother has an epiphany with the Misfit that increases her chance for redemption. Throughout the entire story, the Grandmother is known for her selfish thinking and her one-track mind that, like many humans, is only focused on what she would like to do. Redemption for
In the story “ A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor publish in 1955, is a very interesting story about this family planning on taking a vacation and the father decide that they will go one place and the Grandmother decided that she have a better and safer pace to go by telling the family a scary reason why they should not go to their previous destination. This short story is base on a religious belief concept. Base on the Georgia Humanities webpage dedicated to Flannery O’Connor is considered one of America 's greatest fiction writers and one of the strongest apologists for Roman Catholicism in the twentieth century. Born of the marriage of two of Georgia 's oldest Catholic families, O 'Connor was a devout believer whose small
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” the main plot revolves around a family that gets ready to go on vacation in Florida but for some reason the grandmother tries to justify that they take a trip to Tennesse instead. She rationalizes her decision to change the destination of the trip by citing that a murdered has recently escaped, "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did."
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
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” narrates a story of a manipulative grandmother who always enforces a “moral code” on her family members. When her son, Bailey, announces a family vacation to Florida, the grandmother “[seizes] at every chance to change” his mind because she desires to “visit some of her connections” (137) in Tennessee instead. She reveals her crafty, “snake-like” nature as she “[rattles] the newspaper at [Bailey’s] bald head,” telling him about a murderer who “calls himself The Misfit” (137). When Bailey does not react, the grandmother “[wheels] around… and [faces] the children’s mother” (137). Realizing that the news of the Misfit will not influence the family into changing their travel plans, the grandmother devises a new tactic.
The Role of Family in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, written by Flannery O’Connor is a short story that brings out mystery and cruelty. Manipulation plays a big role in this story by the grandmother. She tends to manipulate her family and tends to get her way by playing with them. Although the author wanted to give many perspectives of the grandmother, we as reader got our own views of her.
The reality of the situation was that she had no control over her father’s death. There was nothing or no way that she could have prevented the events that took place. Although she was extremely angry with the situation at hand she learned that she had other things to be grateful for. She wanted people to know that even though something or someone has passed away you can’t stay stuck in the state of depression forever. You have to step back and look at your life because the reality is, life still moves on.
In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, the author portrays the grandmother as self-centered, dishonest and prideful woman. The grandmother is an old, southern, Caucasian woman who describes herself as a good woman. Throughout the story, O’Connor shows how the grandmother’s pride, and selfishness leads her to unappreciated her family. She does not care about them, she only cares about herself and what will benefit her. The grandmother’s selfishness, judgmental actions, dishonesty put the family in danger.
(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.
As opposed to the Grandmothers constant change of morals to favor certain situations, the Misfit has morals that are set in stone and adhere to his past, present and future. As the two characters converse, religion sparks an interest in the Misfit because it is something he is interested in understanding but knowing it must not be true. He believes that he must see it with his own eyes to prove the existence. His concept of reality also relates himself to Jesus, so much so as to believe he is a realistic representation of Him. He goes on to tell that the only difference is between the crimes committed and the proof held against him.
The misfit in this short story is described as a traditional “good man” by the grandmother. For example, the misfit’s statement after Bailey shouts at the grandmother,
She comes from Tennessee, and believes herself to be a lady and the men in her lives to be gentlemen, even though A Good Man is Hard to Find is written at a time when the notions of proper manners are fading. The story is really emphasizing upon the difference between good and evil, through the contrast of the grandmother and the misfit. The grandmother tells the misfit he is a good man, and here, Connor is playing around with the narrative, because the readers know he is not good. The Misfit does not seem to have a guilty conscience whatsoever, implying that he has accepted the evil that has come into his life. When the grandmother and the Misfit come to face to face, it is a face off between the good versus the evil, and Connor is exploring whether people can embody both ideals or