In her short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find” Flannery O'Connor's seems to portray a feeling that society as she saw it was drastically changing for the worse.
O'Connor's obvious displeasure with society at the time is most likely a result of her
Catholic religion and her very conservative upbringing in the ‘old south.’ She seems to depict her opinion in this particular story by using the character of the grandmother to show what she saw was happening to the times. Evidence of society's "demise" is woven into the story, and presented through an interesting generation gap between the grandmother and her family.
The grandmother is representative of devoutness and Christianity which O'Connor apparently believed to be more prevalent in the "glamorous" Old South. Attention to prim detail separated the grandmother from the rest of her family who seemed to be living in a different world than she. As she organized herself in preparation for the trip, her family was described as rather common people living in a frusturated middle class world.
O’Connor described the old woman as she settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back window.
The children's mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collar and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace, and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once she was a lady.
The parents pay little attention to the grandmother and when they do, they are often quite rude. The unruly children are representative of the breakdown of respect, and discipline, and are consequently a forecast of future generations. They constantly demean the grandmother and at one point, June Star even complains that her grandmother has to go everywhere they go right to her face. O’Connor seems to be illustrating not only how times are changing, but how the future generations have no respect for thier precedents.
The Misfit represents evil. At one point the Misfit likens himself to Christ, in that they both were punished for crimes they did not commit. Christ accepted death for the sins of all people, however. The Misfit is in a constant battle against his fate that he sees
The Misfit tells the reader “My daddy said I was a different breed of dog from my brothers and sisters. ‘You know,’ Daddy said, ‘it’s some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it’s others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He’s going to be into everything!’ ” (O’Connor 1312). The Misfit never backed down from anything which is why his life is the way it is. The Misfit was the one, not good but not the worst either, person to make a stand and to ask why to justice system and his religion. These are the two belief systems that most won’t ever question, which is why the Misfit is such a controversial character. He will never stop asking, and will go against whatever to do what he sees fit, whether it be killing a man or changing his tire.
The Black Codes were legal statutes and constitutional amendments enacted by the ex Confederate states following the Civil War that sought to restrict the liberties of newly free slaves, to ensure a supply of inexpensive agricultural labor, and maintain a white dominated hierachy. (paragraph 1) In southern states, prior to the Civil War they enacted Slave Codes to regulate the institution of slavery. And northern non-slave holding states enacted laws to limit the black political power and social mobility. (paragraph 2) Black Codes were adopted after the Civil War and borrowed points from the antebellum slave laws as well as laws in the northern states used to regulate free blacks. (paragraph 3) Eventually, the Black Codes were extinguished when Radical Republican Reconstruction efforts began in 1866-67 along with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment and civil rights legislation. The lives of the Black Codes did not have longevity but were significant. (paragraph 3)
Although this story is told in the third person, the reader’s eyes are strictly controlled by the meddling, ever-involved grandmother. She is never given a name; she is just a generic grandmother; she could belong to anyone. O’Connor portrays her as simply annoying, a thorn in her son’s side. As the little girl June Star rudely puts it, “She has to go everywhere we go. She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day” (117-118). As June Star demonstrates, the family treats the grandmother with great reproach. Even as she is driving them all crazy with her constant comments and old-fashioned attitude, the reader is made to feel sorry for her. It is this constant stream of confliction that keeps the story boiling, and eventually overflows into the shocking conclusion. Of course the grandmother meant no harm, but who can help but to blame her? O’Connor puts her readers into a fit of rage as “the horrible thought” comes to the grandmother, “that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (125).
...nspired by medieval Italy. It then became a popular trend for brides to copy. The dress was also loose on waist and hip, and have comfortable short sleeves. It did not have any undergarments for support.
Eder, Katharina. Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find-An Analysis. London, UK: GRIN Verlag, 2011. Print. 10 March. 2014
"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is a short story written by the Flannery O 'Connor and was officially published in 1955. The author Flannery O 'Connor was raised in a Roman Catholic family, went to a Catholic school for 16 years, and had a strong Catholic faith. Most of O’Connor’s work of literature indicated her Roman Catholic beliefs; "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is one of the stories that contain a religious message behind it. The story is mainly about two different characters; the grandmother and The Misfit, who met each other by a chance in the middle of nowhere on the road. The grandmother is known as the “good,” innocent, religious, old lady and The Misfit is known as the “evil” escaped criminal that has no faith in God. The focus of this essay is “grace,” in personal knowledge; God has the power to allow every human being “grace” whether good or bad, and has the ability to let anyone; good or bad go to heaven. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” when the grandmother reaches out to touch The Misfit and calls him one of her children “a child of God” hoping to change his emotions and stop him from killing her, that moment is called a “moment of
The grandmother in O’Connor’s narrative symbolizes the classism and false morality present at that time in the South. The characteristic that stands out the most about this old lady is precisely the manner in which she perceives herself; morally superior than others by means of being a “lady”. This is the remark that the Grandmother makes throughout the story for different purposes: to portray superiority, to demand respect and admiration, and to reflect the “goodness” in society. These are attributes that her own family did not seem to believe she possessed nor did they seem to care about. O’Connor employs symbolism to depict the old lady’s false morality mainly through her clothes. The author provides a vivid description of her “lady-like” attire:
Imagine yourself wrongly convicted of a crime. You spent years in jail awaiting your release date. It finally comes, and when they let you out, they slap handcuffs around your wrists and tell you every single action you do. In a nutshell, that’s how the Black Codes worked. The southerners wanted control over the blacks after the Civil War, and states created their own Black Codes.
"Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady" (O'Conner 138).
Flannery O’Connor was born in 1925 into “a prosperous Catholic family in Savannah, Georgia” (404). She wrote her first novel in New York, called “Wise Blood” in 1952. At only the age of 39, she became ill with an immune system disease called lupus and eventually died in 1964. Although she wrote a few novels, Flannery was “best known for her short stories collections”. Her short stories, like James Joyce, is seemed to be characterized in the theme “of gothic, grotesque tales,” but to some readers, she is a Christian writer. One of her short stories that she wrote that falls into the category of a Christian writing is “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. As a reader, it is told that all humanities have sins but they are allow redemption through Jesus Christ. In other words, “God has the power to allow even bad people to go to heaven, which does by granting them grace” (Sparknotes.com). “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, thus falls into the category theme of Grace, Good and Evil.
After the 13th amendment was passed, there was a severe shortage of workers on plantations and they needed help. The black codes were partially created because of economic worries of not having labor in the south. They helped reconstruction because it ensured that wealthy southern landowners would have a cheap and steady workforce they needed, because some of the codes forced African Americans to sign contracts that required them to work for meager wages. The government was also scared that the freed slaves would try to get revenge on their owners. The black codes helped regain control and inhibit the freedoms over the freed slaves, prevent black uprisings, ensure the continued and steady supply of cheap labor, and maintain segregation and white supremacy. Also, without the black codes, many amendments granting African Americans equal rights wouldn’t have been passed. The black codes forced congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th amendment. The northerners reaction to black codes helped produce radical reconstruction and the 14th and 15th
Lessons are learned through mistakes and experiences, but to completely understand the lesson, a person must be smart enough to profit from their errors and be strong enough to correct them. However, this was not the case for the main character in the short story; A Good Man is Hard to Find written by Flannery O’Connor. In this tale of manipulation and deception, O’Connor depicts the main character, the grandmother, as a shrewd self-centered woman, who considers herself morally superior than the other individuals. Throughout the entire story, she is seen using her manipulative tactics on everyone, which brought her to a sinister ending. O’Connor expertly portrayed the grandmother as a character that did not correct her negative characteristics throughout the story. To prove this statement, the use of time will be applied to help focus on the main idea of the grandmother not changing her deleterious ways throughout this story.
Bailey; is the son of the grandmother. He and his wife ignores her, does not care much of her.
Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find is one of the most well-known short stories in American history. A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a disturbing short story that exemplifies grace in extremity as well as the threat of an intruder. The story tells of an elderly grandmother and her family who embark on a road trip to Florida. The grandmother is a stubborn old woman with a low sense of morality. While on the trip, the grandmother convinces her son to take a detour which results in a broken down car and an encounter with a convicted fugitive, The Misfit. Although the grandmother pleads for mercy, The Misfit kills off the rest of her family. Through the grace she finds in her extreme circumstance, the grandmother calls The Misfit her own and implores him to spare her life. The Misfit does not oblige her and states after her death, “She would have been a good woman if it had been someone to shoot her every day of her life.” Through Flannery O’Connor’s disturbing and shocking display of the grandmother’s demise, she gives the reader a sense of the threatening power of an intruder and the idea of extreme situations bringing about a state of grace. The reason for such a powerful work may have resulted from Flannery O’Connor’s religious upbringing as well as the state of the nation at the time.
In this play we read about a young prince named Hamlet who devotes himself to avenging his father's death. As the play progresses we see that Hamlet is contemplative and demonstrates his true desires and feelings. Hamlet begins to show signs of weakness and his indecision to seek vengeance in his soliloquy “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!”(2.2.560). Hamlet throughout the play is perceived as a weak, emotionally unstable, and cowardly individual.