A Good Man is Hard to Find Essay

I believe The Misfit took his religion serious but he was confused. The grandmother never took her religious faith seriously. Her final gesture is a genuine moment of grace. Once again she is trying to be manipulative, but The Misfit is one who she cannot manipulate, or is she?

In Flannery O’Conner’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” there were reasons why the Misfit, the wanted prisoner, killed the grandmother, the selfish prominent character. Although she did not want to travel in the direction the Misfit was headed, her selfish decisions led her and her family in an unfortunate accident which led them to be approached by the Misfit. His psychological instability, his moral code and being recognized by the grandmother ultimately led to her demise.

Since the beginning of mankind there is been an unsolved issue of good verses evil. We see this controversial issue in everyday life, Such as Television, Newspaper, etc. " It is not difficult to label the agent of evil in Flannery O' Connor's signature story, "A Good Man is Hard To Find", says John, Desmond. The family is described as a typical modern family, which has all type of problems. Agreeing with each other is one of the biggest problems the family faces. The story starts of where Grandma is in disagreement with her son about where they should plane there next family trip to. After much discussion they decided on going to Florida. The story makes a twist when their car gets into an accident and they have an encounter with Misfit,

The story I picked is from O’Connor “A Good Man is Hard to Find. I chose this story because of previous stories that O’Connor wrote were fascinating such as “Good Country People.” The titles she uses for her short stories just interest you to read them and figure out what is the meaning behind the title. When I first saw the title I assumed it to be a love story of a young woman looking for a good man to marry after many failed attempts to find him. After you read the story, you will be able to tell I was way off. The thesis to “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is based on selfish characters who believe their way of living or thought is right and could not be questioned but learned the hard way but while ending in violence.

The grandmother is the central character in the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor. She is also a very well rounded and dynamic character. She shows various characteristics and reveals various remarks as they story progresses. Some of her qualities include selfish and a pushy person. She is also kind of manipulator in a way that she insists her family to change the plan. At the beginning of the story when we first realize her desire to visit her childhood house, she is being a very selfish person. Examining her conversation with her son Bailey, the grandmother is moreover a pushy person. She is convincing Bailey to change the trip plan according to her need only and which will

You are sitting in your living room at home watching the nightly news. The lead story for the night is about a family of four that were murdered. After seeing and hearing about something like that we often ask ourselves, What could possess a person enough to kill another human being? What is it that drives a person to kill? Will we ever know? Many authors use this unique mentality in short stories. They write about what the killer thinks and how he/she acts on his/her thoughts. One of these stories is “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, by Flannery O’Connor. In this story O’Connor’s victim, The Misfit, is an escaped convict. He was in the Federal Penitentiary for killing his father. Throughout the story O’Connor builds up this killers mentality

The Grandmother identifies herself as having the best values. She completely overdresses for the trip in a "navy straw hat and collars and cuffs, so that if there was an accident, people would know she was a lady" (368). The narrator points out that she looks down upon other people as well. In the beginning of the story, she criticizes the mother for "not taking the children to different parts of the world and being broad" (367), and tells John Wesley that he "should be more respectful of his native state and his parents" (368). Despite being so judgmental, the Grandmother never criticizes her own dishonesty, hypocrisy, and selfishness. When she criticizes John Wesley about the state, she calls a little black boy "a cute pickaninny" (368) in the same sentence. She later says that little black kids do not have things like they do and that "if she could paint, she would paint that picture" (368). The Grandmother paints this picture later with a romantic story of the good old days on the Southern plantations. Her definition of a good man is even flawed. The narrator says she would have married Edgar Teagarden because "he was a gentleman who bought Coca-Cola stock, making him a rich man" (369). In the end, when the Misfit is killing her family members one by one, she tells him to pray for himself. But she never once prays for her own family or begs the Misfit to spare them. She is even dramatic when she pulls a handkerchief out to fan herself and tells the Misfit "you wouldn't kill a lady would you" (373), effectively trying to save herself instead of her family.

O'Connor does the same thing here; the grandmother's first action was to convince her son, Bailey, into going were she wanted to go, a selfish act, not a trait that we see a grandmother having. Also she thought out a plan to get what she wanted by acting as if she cared about her family's safety. "Now looks here, Bailey........ see here, read this...Here this fellow that calls himself the Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed towards Florida and you read here what is says he did to these people(328)." The grandmother's relationship right away to the reader is one that can not be trusted. Throughout the story you now question the grandmother's intentions, are they honest or selfish.

With the shock of coming face-to-face with death, she starts to let go of her power-hungry and deceptive behavior and decides to act out of love and humility. Her head has become clear, and more than ever she becomes aware of the situation. All her shallow and hypocritical thoughts seemed to have dissipated, and she sees the Misfit as a child of God just. The grandma notices a voice crack in the Misfit’s voice and thought he was about to cry; she murmurs, “Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children” (O’Connor 458-459)! The grandmother calls the Misfit one of her kids despite the crimes he has already committed; God’s spirit may have entered the grandmother and is attempting to offer redemption to the Misfit since she has now accepted it. The still figure of the grandmother is described as “her legs crossed under her like a child’s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky” (459). God has given the grandma salvation now, and her spirit has a journey to heaven via the cloudless sky. O’Connor shows the protagonist to be hypocritical, but the protagonist found salvation and appeared happy after accepting God and feeling love towards the Misfit; the Misfit appeared to reject God when he shot the grandmother in the chest after she was trying to lend him a hand. The grandmother was able to find salvation through the violence the Misfit brought.

The Grandmother was trying to appeal to the Misfits good nature, by saying "You're not a bit common!" (CITE). She was trying to explain to him that she believed that he was not an ordinary person, he must have come from good parents. The Misfit respond by simply saying "… I ain't a good man" (CITE). When face to face with the Misfit the Grandmother said "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" (CITE). This was her last attempted to save her life. In this last attempted she reached out and put her hand on the Misfits shoulder. As soon as she touched him he jumped back and shot her three times. It was this final act, to appeal to him for his soul, not her own that scared the Misfit into quickly shooting her. In the end, she had finally reached God, not to save herself, but for the benefit of someone else.

“ 'Maybe He didn't raise the dead', the old lady mumbled....” (375) The grandmother's words are a display that her faith was only a facade in an attempt to seem good to everyone else. The grandmother and the Misfit were vastly different characters. The biggest difference between the grandmother and The Misfit was that the grandmother, despite her selfish actions throughout the story, believed herself to be good. The Misfit knew that he wasn’t good. In her last few moments, the grandmother changes one last time, finally putting the well being of someone else before her own. The grandmother reached out to the man that had just murdered her family and tried to comfort him. This act of compassion startled The Misfit and he shot her in the chest, killing the grandmother instantly. “Hiram and Bobby Lee returned from the woods and stood over the ditch, looking down at the/ grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child's/ and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky” (385-387). The manner in which the grandmother is positioned in her death is

In the short story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” Flannery O 'Connor uses the grandmother as a main character. Baileys mother in this story views herself as a truthful, wise and righteous lady throughout. She uses her manipulation, lies, and persuasiveness to her advantage but soon the reader learns how honest those views are. She quickly reveals herself as a different person when those traits she usually uses to get what she wants fails her. She can easily persuade someone to get her way, but how she reacts when faced against somebody else who exhibits those same traits becomes a issue for her. In a sense grandmother plays a roll of being iconic to her family and friends this role causes her a destined death when its obvious she can not decide that sometimes a role is not needed and your truthful self is.

Despite the fact that The Misfit rejects all the grandma 's contentions, he tunes in to them nearly; he gives careful consideration when the grandma alludes to Jesus. At the point when the grandma is finally alone with The Misfit, she forsakes every last bit of her strategies. Her set out clears toward a moment, in which she sees the killer as thin, slight, and wretched. She connects and tries to touch him. He withdraws in aversion and shoots her. Having been observer to the grandma 's snapshot of beauty, The Misfit concedes that it’s no longer fun being mean.

Only when the grandmother is facing death, in her final moments alone with the Misfit, does she understand where she has gone wrong in life. Instead of being superior, she realizes, she is flawed like everyone else. When she tells the Misfit that he is “one of [her] own children,” she is showing that she has found the ability to see others with compassion and understanding.

The Grandmother wants the Misfit to receive salvation from God, so that he can be forgiven for his sins. Even though the Grandmother got the family into this mess, she can still be viewed as the hero.