"I suspect that most of you have been telling stories all your lives..."(O'Connor #2 PG) is the statement Flannery O'Connor makes in her lecture entitled Writing Short Stories. Living to be only thirty-nine years old when lupus took her life in 1964, it did not take long for her to became a literary icon. It is difficult for O'Connor, who raised peacocks in her hometown of Milledgeville, Georgia, to fathom that people perceive writing fiction as a chore, as one of the "most difficult literary forms" (O'Connor #2 PG), when it is something she achieves as though it were of no effort whatsoever. One of her primary points to writing good fiction involves the use of symbolism, which is more than apparent within the literary boundaries of A Good Man is Hard to Find, where "a psychopathic killer and a grandmother meet head-on in epic, parabolic violence as large as life, death, faith, and doubt" (Gingher 258).
On the surface, O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find appears innocent enough in its content. But as the reader becomes more and more involved in the symbolic underpinnings that embody the story, it is quite clear that there is a distinctive flavor of evil versus Christianity. In fact, it has been argued that the extent to which O'Connor utilizes the central theme of Christianity is as a subtle, symbolic plot to convert her readers, whom she had envisioned as nonbelievers. By demonstrating to her audience all the good that comes from faith, along with all the bad that merely begets more evil, it was her intention to enlighten her readership down the right path.
The grandmother character in A Good Man is Hard to Find is the Christian icon of the story, while the Misfit represents all that is evil. True to her southern roots, ...
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...articular particularly symbolic aspect of A Good Man is Hard to Find is the fact that O'Connor is a great deal more elusive in her interpretation than in her other works. The author relies considerably more upon intangible ideals and concepts in which to make her point, which is readily obvious by the style and tone she adopts for the story. "She had her own distinctive, totally unsparing voice, and this novella about a tough old lady and a tougher escaped convict is as black as it gets" (Anonymous 182). In one way, she is trying to encourage both her readers and her characters to take control of their lives, to become empowered by the very events that serve to break down the people in her tale. Yet in another way, she recognizes the fact that people will always be the way they are, and nothing that anyone can say or do will ultimately save them from themselves.
The Grandmother’s deviousness and immorality is evident in the beginning of the story. While reading the newspaper article about the Misfit, the Grandmother brings it to Bailey’s attention. In Short Story Criticism, Mary Jane Schenck writes “For Bailey, the newspaper story is not important or meaningful, and for the Grandmother it does not represent a real threat but is part of a ploy to get her own way” (Schenck 220). “A Good Man is Hard to Find” begins with an innocent road trip, however, due to coercion by the Grandmother; it soon turns into a fatal nightmare. In Short Story Criticism, Martha Stephens writes “… it is true that in a trivial sense everything that happens is the Grandmother’s fault…” She continues with “It is in the conscious of the Grandmother that we continue to experience the action of the story…” (Stephens 196).
Grandmothers are known to be loving, sweet and caring old women, not this grandma. In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” the grandmother is a very manipulative old woman. Her cynical ways of manipulation caused her family to go through a lot of torture within only a few hours. Throughout the story she manipulates her own son, Bailey, her grandchildren, John Wesley and June Star, and even a criminal who escaped from the penitentiary. Not all old women are nice; it just so happens that this one was cynical.
In A Good Man Is Hard to Find, O’Connor gives brilliant support to the theme, even going so far as stating it in the title itself. Through her creative details and intentional use of rhetoric, O’Connor strengthens the idea that the true definition of a ‘good man’ is skewed and difficult to pinpoint. Defining a ‘good man’ varies because it is individualized from reader to reader and a generic definition cannot be composed. This gothic piece of literature is realistic, and through its theme, the reader is exposed to the flaws of society as a whole.
As I read Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, I find myself being completely consumed by the rich tale that the author weaves; a tragic and ironic tale that concisely and precisely utilizes irony and foreshadowing with expert skill. As the story progresses, it is readily apparent that the story will end in a tragic and predictable state due to the devices which O’Connor expertly employs and thusly, I find that I cannot stop reading it; the plot grows thicker with every sentence and by doing so, the characters within the story are infinitely real in my mind’s eye. As I consider these factors, the story focuses on two main characters; that of the grandmother, who comes across as self-centered and self-serving and The Misfit, a man, who quite ingeniously, also appears to be self-centered and self-serving. It is the story behind the grandmother, however, that evidence appears to demonstrate the extreme differences between her superficial self and the true character of her persona; as the story unfolds, and proof of my thought process becomes apparently clear.
A story without style is like a man without personality: useless and boring. However, Flannery O’Connor incorporates various different styles in her narratives. Dark humor, irony, and symbolism are perhaps the utmost powerful and common styles in her writing. From “Revelation” and “Good Country People” to “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” all of O’Connor’s stories consist of different styles in writing.
“A Good man is hard to find,” is about a family who decide to go on a trip to Florida. The story revolves around a self absorbed grandmother who loves to talk about how everything used to be back in her day and takes the time to dress herself so that “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady (358).” She sneaks the family cat with her despite her son’s disapproval of bringing the creature along violating her boundaries to how a lady would act. The family encounters an accident along the way and happens to come across ‘The Misfit,’ a runaway criminal. Using ‘The Misfit’ as a tool, O’ Connor sends a message to her readers of how hypocritical a person can be when it comes to belief.
Elmore Leonard once said “I don’t judge in my books. I don’t have the antagonist get shot or the protagonist win. It’s just how it comes out. I’m just telling a story.” “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, written by Flannery O'Connor, is one of the most interesting stories that we have read in this class. The protagonist in this story is the grandmother and the antagonist is The Misfit. In any other short story, the protagonist and the antagonist would not have much in common, but that is not the case in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. The three major similarities between the grandmother and The Misfit is that they are both the oldest one in their groups, they are both hypocrites, and they both are missing important spiritual relationships.
From the resolutions of “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “Good Country People,” and even “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, the reader realizes that people are not quite what we think they are (often in her stories, people are more evil than we think). In two of these stories, a character that readers learn to trust becomes the antagonist; although in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the opposite occurs. A man that Grandmother knows is evil and has developed a fear for becomes someone that the protagonist of the story trusts or at least sympathizes with. The idea that links all three stories is that people are not what they seem. This intertextualization establishes an idea that O’Connor is trying to emphasize to her readers. Further establishing the idea, O’Connor uses tone to create a universal atmosphere. Certain moments in O’Connor’s text seem ominous. Literary critic Henry McDonald seems to agree that “O’Connor’s theme of “the whole man” is present in all her fiction”(McDonald 274). For instance, in “Good Country People,” O’Connor’s tone helps establish the theme that is woven through “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and this story: as Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman are having a conversation, she says “Some people are more alike than others” even when the surrounding text does not match this. Davis J. Leigh explains that “almost all her central figures
In the short story, 'A Good Man is Hard to Find', the main character is the grandmother. Flannery O'Connor, the author, lets the reader find out who the grandmother is by her conversations and reactions to the other characters in the story. The grandmother is the most important character in the story because she has a main role in the stories principal action. This little old lady is the protagonist in this piece. We learn more about her from her direct conversation with the son, Bailey, her grandchildren, June Star and John Wesley, and the Misfit killer. Through these conversations, we know that she is a lady raised from a traditional background. In the story, her attitude changes more than once to accommodate the surroundings that she is in. With the data provided, we can tell that the grandmother goes from not wanting to go to Florida, to anxious to go, and in the end, I felt as if she went off the deep end. All of the sudden, the only thing she really concentrates on is Jesus and her not being killed.
In" A Good Man is Hard to Find" there are a variety of themes. The themes in this short story are: the grace of the grandmother and The Misfit, the vague definition of a “good man”, and the class of the grandmother. All of these themes are apparent to any reader, but it does not quite seem to match O’Connor’s depth style way of writing. The two characters, the Grandmother and the Misfit change from beginning to end. Even though they are both different as night and day, they both have principles and stand by their principles no matter what the circumstance.
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.
"A Good Man is Hard to Find" is certainly a very special story which teaches many valuable moral and religious lessons through O'Connor's explicit use of symbolism to exhibit concerns of the lack of spiritual faith and the class consciousness amongst people. We saw how O'Connor specifically used the grandmother and June Star's character to highlight the people's lack of spiritual faith and class-consciousness. O'Connor also used other symbols such as the colour white, images like clouds and objects like the purple spray of cloth violets to represent various abstractions, which is being discussed this essay, specifically issues on the lack of spiritual faith and class-consciousness that exist in human.
Flannery O’ Connor’s story: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is the tale of a vacation gone wrong. The tone of this story is set to be one irony. The story is filled with grotesque but meaningful irony. I this analysis I will guide you through the clues provided by the author, which in the end climax to the following lesson: “A Good Man” is not shown good by outward appearance, language, thinking, but by a life full of “good” actions.
In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” the readers are lead to believe that the Grandmother is a good Southern woman who lives her life by God’s grace, and the Misfit is a horrendous, murderous, mad man that believes in nothing. Although these first impressions seem spot on at a first glance, the actual characteristics and traits of these characters are far more complex. The Grandmother and Misfit have a very intriguing conversation before he murders her, but in the short time before her death, the readers see the grandmothers need for redemption and how the murderous Misfit gave her the redemption she so desperately needed,
...sque, and in Flannery O’Connor’s artistic makeup there is not the slightest trace of sentimentally” (qtd. in Bloom 19). Flannery O’Connor’s style of writing challenges the reader to examine her work and grasp the meaning of her usage of symbols and imagery. Edward Kessler wrote about Flannery O’Connor’s writing style stating that “O’Connor’s writing does not represent the physical world but serves as her means of apprehending and understanding a power activating that world” (55). In order to fully understand her work one must research O’Connor and her background to be able to recognize her allegories throughout her stories. Her usage of religious symbols can best be studied by looking into her religious Catholic upbringing. Formalist criticism exists in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” through Flannery O’Connor’s use of plot, characterization, setting, and symbolism.