A Good Man Is Hard To Find Moral Compass Essay

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Flannery O'Connor writes a short story about a family and a misfit whose moral compasses stand at opposite poles. A story that takes us on a trip literally from Atlanta, Georgia to Florida, yet figuratively as there lies a story within this story. One simple journey leads to a tragic event that questions the moral compass of the main characters. Can a misfit, loner, and nonconformist have a moral compass or are only the typical everyday doers of society the ones that have true moral compasses? Each character in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” considers their personal moral compass to be true, but the Misfit, that just escaped from the federal penitentiary exhibits the truest moral compass of all. The grandmother believes that she has the best values in the family. She gets overdressed for the family trip in a “navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets, collars and cuffs were white organdy …show more content…

The Misfit has consistent true moral compass that he lives by, even if it is distorted and flawed. He keeps true to himself as he tells Grandmother, “I’m not a good man, but I’m not the worst either” (O’Connor 413). Throughout the story, he relies on his twisted moral compass to guide him throughout his life. The end of the story proves which character is true and which is fake. The Grandmother portrays herself as a family woman, but as her family is being killed one by one she never asked for them to be spared. She is just concerned with her own life. She tries to portray herself as a lady as she fans herself with a handkerchief. She asks the Misfit, “you wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you” (O’Connor 412). When all her dramatics don’t work on the Misfit, she tries to connect to him through religion. He is touched by their religious conversation, but he knows that he can’t allow her to live and he shoots

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