Selflessness And Flawedness

In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, hypocrisy and dishonesty outline the pages of the short story. A grandmother whose name remains anonymous continuously bothers her son and his family. She constantly tries to manipulate them to get her own way, in this case, where she wanted to go on vacation. The grandmother states that she is a lady, which is contradicted through her actions in the story. One of her actions which includes her sneaking her cat into the car with her, which later on causes a car accident. One of the character attributes of the grandmother is as stated before: hypocrisy. She chastises her son for his children’s somewhat snooty behavior, but yet towards the end of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” she does not even beg for her

One tends to meet someone who seems to be in charge of everyone around him or her. The grandmother in Flannery O’Conner’s A Good Man is Hard to Find is an extraordinary, scheming character that is extremely unrelenting in her actions to control people. On the contrary, she may have been a person just trying to attempt to save her own life without trying to be controlling. Maybe the fact that she was raised in a time when woman wore dresses to go out and never did anything unlady-like, made her think that her way of thinking and acting was the only acceptable behavior, even till the very moments before she was killed by the Misfit. The grandmother was trying to change her killer’s outlook on life and his position on holy grace and

The grandmother believes The Misfit is “good” because he will not shoot a lady, which is a denial in her faith to keep her moral principles. Her theory proves to be false. The only thing “good” about the Misfit is his uniformity in living out his moral cipher of there is no pleasure but meanness in life.

The final comment of the story seams to be showing a change in misfits' life. Misfit seams to be thinking about goodness and probably thinking that evil is not the answer to the problems in his life. The story shows us that a lot of people are evil, but when they are in trouble they will think of god, as grandma did in the story. At the end of the story Misfit regrets killing grandma, and says that "she would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life. (O' Connor 318)." The story is trying to tell us that do not flight all the time and be evil, because you never know what may happen to one. O' Connor is trying to tell us that every man has good and evil in him, but some time we only see one side of them and forget that they have another side as well. The final comment of the story implies that even though misfit seams evil, there still might be some goodness in him. Misfit has gone thorough so many challenges in his life that have made him this way, because he has no faith.

Philosophers have debated for centuries the question “Are humans are selfish or selfless?” There are two main arguments for debating human nature, ethical egoists and ethical altruists. Ethical egoists believe that “even though we can act in others’ interests because we are concerned for others, we ought always to act in our own interest” (Solomon et al 2012 p. 460). Ethical altruists believe quite the opposite; ethical altruism is the belief that “people ought to act with each other’s interests in mind” (Solomon et al 2012 p. 461). In discussing the four theories, psychological egoism, psychological altruism, ethical egoism, and ethical altruism, with my husband, there was not a clear dividing line for whether humans are selfish or selfless in nature. After much debate, we concluded that humans are born ethical egoists; however, ethical altruists are made through proper training, care, and nurture.

In Flannery O’Connor’s Misfit and the Mystery of Evil, John Desmond suggests that the story is an allusion to the teachings of Christianity (Desmond). The author asserts that people should strive to live without necessarily having to prioritize trivial social issues. According to the author, the Grandmother commits the mistake of overindulging in her apparent superiority as compared

The story provides evidence that good and evil can not be determined by one contributing action. An individual who wants to assist those is not considered the same type of good man as an individual who has respectable morals, but still decides to murder. O’Conner illustrates to the reader that The Misfit was considered a good man because both he and the grandmother shared the same values, so she believed he would never shoot a woman. The grandmother believed Red Sammy to be a good man because he was humble to an individual who he felt was in need. The Misfit was still considered evil he killed the family, but the grandmother insisted that he was good.

Violence in the short story is very interesting because its so apparent and yet so deep. Towards the end of the story, the Misfit says to Grandmother “She would of been a good woman . . . if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” Flannery O’Connor doesn’t say that being exposed to violence makes them better people, but the message is clear: violence changes us as a people (both in the story and in the real world). Up until the very end, each member of the family, mostly Grandmother, acted egotistically and only focused in herself. None of the characters take a minute to evaluate whats right and wrong for themselves or anyone else. They all react based on their instincts without thinking things through so much. But when Grandmother is put in a life or death situation where she’s forced to carefully pick her words and actions, she is suddenly capable of a being more selfless and spiritually sound. The Grandmother’s everyday considerations probably have nothing to do with her son or the kids, really anyone in her family, but when she is faced with her own mortality she has this moment of “grace”—she calls the Misfit her own son, and reach makes an effort, emotionally and physically, hoping to save herself or comfort him. In the end, however, the Grandmother’s moment of “grace” ends up getting her killed. O’Connor

There are two deeper meanings hidden in this text though that even good can have some bad in it and what the Misfit and Grandmother represent (in a larger view point). The Grandmother appears to be trying to be a good Christen women by trying to turn the child around to remember god, the deeper meaning to this is that she is scared of dying and will try anything to live another day even trying to accept the child as her own, which leads her to her own demise. This shows that while there may appear to be good in everyone there is also bad. The Grandmother is a great example of this because she tries to appear like a good Christen women by helping the child to find god by asking him to pray when her actual motive was to get him to let her live. The quote, “"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

Religion and O’Connor’s writing The story A Good Man Is Hard To Find, is used by Flannery O’Connor as a platform of which she uses to present and delve into Man’s sinfulness, God’s grace and salvation. She does this mainly through the dialogue of two main characters the misfit and the grandmother. Furthermore she presents a situation in which these characters must choose whether they want God’s salvation or not.

The irony in the story is shown when the grandmother, who thinks she is a good Christian, in reality is just as evil as the Misfit.

Doing so, she uses her grandchildren as a ploy to get her way, setting aside the wishes of her family. Speaking to O’Connor’s mother’s self centered behavior and lack of care for others, even in the face of adversity.

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 flaws of human nature are many, but one of the biggest is the gullibility, especially in the presence of the supernatural. It is often easy to think that the thoughts or actions of an individual are of their own doing. It is even easier to assume that the range of the mind falls between good and evil. But society is not quite clear and even in fiction, there is always something motivating an action that lingers in the back of the mind of any character. The supernatural in particular is known for its ability to push people to extremes and alter their perception drastically. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it is easy to assume the blind ambition that brews within Macbeth and his wife or the guilt that plagues them following their actions is the biggest motivator. But that is just the surface of the complexity interlaced into this tragedy. Dig further, and it becomes clear that these emotions were not always prevalent in the characters, but were instead prompted by a force so powerful, it toyed with fate and provoked deception until the end; it was the supernatural that fueled the emotions and actions that take up much of the play.

"Selflessness is what has brought me the most happiness." I heard this statement countless times from my grandmother while growing up. She was constantly providing for others in public settings by organizing events through our church or helping other elderly people load their groceries in their car on her weekly shopping trip. She was just as giving in private settings with nobody around to note her selflessness, rarely taking time to do anything for herself before she made sure everyone else was content and happy.