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Flannery O Connor's The Misfit And The Grandmother

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Through the use of heavy characterization with The Misfit and The Grandmother, Flannery O’Connor exposes the characters’ weaknesses and shortcomings and their urgent need for redemption.
The Grandmother is one of the first characters we learn about in the story. She is portrayed as the epitome of a “lady” wearing a hat, gloves, dress, and cloth flowers on her dress, so that “in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O’Connor). The Grandmother believes that by projecting herself as a lady, she will appear as a good person and be respected by others. When the Grandmother talks to Red Sam about how “people are certainly not nice like they used to be,” she is attempting to show her goodness …show more content…

The Misfit is an escaped convict who travels with two cohorts that help him murder innocent people. Obviously an evil man, Arthur F. Bethea describes The Misfit as the anti-christ, stating: “Indeed, like Satan, The Misfit is an anti-Christ… The most significant contrast is that Jesus sacrificed himself so that his true followers could enjoy everlasting life, while O’Connor’s villain is relentlessly associated with death” (247). The Misfit is angry at jesus, he states: "Jesus was the only one that ever raised the dead," The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it. If He did what He said, then there's nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left…" The Misfit does not believe in Jesus so he believes that life is pointless. This could be a reason he kills so mercilessly and does not feel remorse for his victims. Kilcourse describes the Misfit’s Actions “This bringer of death is profoundly offended that the Giver of Life cannot be dismissed as a mere holy man or eminent ethical figure but must be adjudged as either the incarnate of God or else a wholesale fraud” (38). The Misfit is a nihilist, and he wants to believe that God exists, but he can’t and his merciless killing and crimes are a strike back at

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