The Misfit Character Analysis

When the family comes in contact with the escaped convict, the Misfit, that is when they realize, especially the grandmother, the importance of a family. This is because the Misfit sheds light on a new way to look at family. When all the violence and gunshots are going rampant, familial love is acknowledged since the family is losing its loved ones. At the end of the story is where familial love is present because throughout the story, each character has his own desires and does not care about the others. That is when the grandmother extends familial love outward, as she tells the Misfit that “‘you’re one of my own children’” which shows that just as violence introduces moments of grace, it also gives birth to familial love out from beneath mundane arguments and disagreements (O’Connor 377).

The Misfit was “convicted of murdering his father: ‘It was a head-doctor at the penitentiary said what I had done was kill my daddy but I known that for a lie. My daddy died in nineteen ought nineteen of the epidemic flu and I never had a thing to do with it.’ The Misfit is not part of any family, and the loss of his family forced him into criminality” (Omnus). The Misfit provides a new way to look at the importance of familial roles. The name “Misfit, which the criminal has given himself to indicate that it is impossible for crime and punishment to perfectly add up, also implies that he is apart from any family. He simply does not fit in anywhere—he is a social outcast” (Omnus). Again, the theme of holding one’s self to being superior over others and stating what he wants, leads to tragedy and