One of the most memorable lines from “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” comes from the Misfit when he says, “She would have been a good woman if it had been someone there to shoot her for every minute of her life (O’Connor 309).” Flannery O’Connor’s depiction of Christian faith can be seen in almost all of her works. Inevitably, the plots in all of O’Connor’s stories end with a shocking conclusion, and this leaves the reader with freedom to interpret the central idea. From the endless list of themes that O’Connor embeds into her stories, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is largely influenced by divine grace, hypocrisy, bitter reality, and white supremacy. The feeling of white supremacy can be repeatedly seen in O’Connor’s writing, including “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” Although it is a little difficult to decide if the Grandmother is racist because of her disguised formal style of speech, there are moments in the story raise questions about her moral attitude towards blacks. For example, when she narrates the watermelon story, she degrades the reputation of black people by saying “because a nigger boy ate it” and doesn’t consider anyone else to be responsible for such an act (O’Connor 301). In the comment is she stereotyping black people as the scapegoats for all matters, like they did in the slavery period? Or is it to “highlight the white Southerner’s popular belief that the black Southerner loves watermelon?” as Whitt believes in his book, Understanding Flannery O’Connor. Her racist remark certainly shines a light on how biased all of her comments are because secretly the watermelon story is a real account of her life. She calls the woman in the story a “maiden” and uses words like “courted” to show the elegant lifestyle of whites, s... ... middle of paper ... ... chapter,“Mrs. Shortley and the Grandmother,” in this book by Marshal Gentry compares and contrasts two different stories that are thematically the same. Gentry finds the theme of religious awakening in both of O’Connor’s works, “The Displaced Person” and “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” The main difference between the two is how each character in the stories acquires the concept of redemption. Unlike Mrs. Shortley, who attains it primarily through her own psyche, redemption is forced upon the Grandmother. Although this chapter is a comparison, both characters share the feeling of self-righteousness, which is exactly what I need for my argument. Also, because this chapter refers to another work of O’Connor, I plan to use this source as an extra pillar for my thesis statement or possibly for my view on how the Grandmother is accountable for all the mishaps in the story.
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.
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 “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” O’Connor introduces the reader to a family who represents the juxtaposition between old and new Southern culture. The grandmother, in particular, represents the old South because she focuses on her appearance, manners, and other attributes that are considered the stereotypical image of femininity. She is a self proclaimed lady whose “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” (405-406). In fact, she yearned to dress ideally so that “in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead...
Flannery O’Connor is a master of the ironic, the twisted, and the real. Life is filled with tragic irony, and she perfectly orchestrates situations which demonstrate this to the fullest extent. A Good Man is Hard to Find is an excellent example of the mangled viewpoint which makes her work as compelling and striking as it is.
Despite the fact that we are not instantly aware of O’Connor’s indication of foreshadowing, we begin to see a pattern of this family’s inevitable rendezvous with
Religion and Racism in Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find and Everything that Rises Must Converge
In her well-known short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor skillfully describes the difficulty of finding a morally upright human being, whether it is a man or a woman. No one is perfect, everyone has inadequacies and shortcomings, and she presents this cleverly in her story. She is able to support this view of mankind through her characters. They are self-centered, egotistical human beings who can be judged by their words and actions. This is especially true of the protagonist (the grandmother) and the antagonist (the Misfit). The grandmother tries to portray herself as a virtuous woman, but in the end O’Connor shows that her actions are always self-serving and that morally, she is not that different from the Misfit.
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” is another example of O’Connor’s way of writing stories. She has the reputation of being a Christian – belief writer. (Rath and Shaw) Her Catholic (Forkner, and Samway) religious values are expressed in her works whether it is exposed straight forward, forecasted or underlying it is there. In religious beliefs there is a representation of the Trinity; which means God represents three people in one: The Father (God), the son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit. There are also three values in religious beliefs: faith, death and salvation. Faith is that you believe in the Lord and live your life to the good graces of his commandments. Second is death, which everyone faces on earth and how you lived your life will you end up in heaven or hell. Third is salvation, which is if you believe in the Lord that there is everlasting life after death or be condemned to Hell. O’Connor shows us these factors through out the story by using many symbols and implying situations to express them.
The grandmother, the main character of the story, is manipulative. Her definition of a ‘good man’ refers to the characteristics that a ‘good man’ should possess. She believes that the true definition of a good man is a southern gentleman: respectful, chivalrous, and courageous when necessary. From the beginning, the reader is given the indication that the grandmother is determined to get what she wants and will do whatever she can to do so. And, from the second line of the story, O’Connor suggests that anything the grandmother says might have an alternative motive. “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind” (1284). This is relevant to the theme in that a person may have alternate motives, even if they seem to be doing things selflessly from an outsider’s perspective. When the grandmother mentions that she doesn’t want to go to Florida, her son Bailey assumes it’s because of the Misfit killer who has escaped from prison. However, in actuality, she wanted to visit other family and friends in Tennessee.
O’ Connor forces the reader to wonder which characters are “Good Men”, perhaps by the end of the story she is trying to convey two points: first, that a discerning “Good Man” can be very difficult, second, that a manipulative, self-centered, and hollow character: The Grandmother is a devastating way to be, both for a person individually and for everyone else around them. The reader is at least left wondering if some or all of the clues to the irony I provided apply in some way to the outcome of this story.
The author distinguishes white people as privileged and respectful compared to mulattos and blacks. In the racial society, white people have the right to get any high-class position in a job or live in any place. In the story, all white characters are noble such as Judge Straight lawyer, Doctor Green, business-man George, and former slaveholder Mrs. Tryon. Moreover, the author also states the racial distinction of whites on mulattos. For example, when Dr. Green talks to Tryon, “‘The niggers,’., ‘are getting mighty trifling since they’ve been freed.
In Flannery O 'Connor 's short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, the theme of good vs. evil unravels throughout the series of tragic events. The Grandmother’s epiphany introduces the idea of morality and the validity is left to the interpretation of the reader. By questioning the characteristics of right and wrong, morality and religion become subjective to personal reality and the idea of what makes individuals character good or bad becomes less defined.
Views and Characters 	Flannery O’Connor wrote the short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" in the hopes of portraying to the reader the racist views of the time: many of the ideals possess "a kind of holy madness or beauty." (Kirszner 238). These are the words mentioned in literature, and express the emotions that O’Connor made the grandmother experience in the story. The story takes on a sort of irony throughout to provide a comedic look at old values and traditions, displaying to the reader how we advance over time. The grandmother very ignorantly describes just how separate dark and light colored people were during the period. "Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!" she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack. "Wouldn’t that make a picture,
Flannery O’Connor is best known for her Southern Gothic writing style and grotesque characters. Dorothy Tuck McFarland states that “O’Connor created bizarre characters or extreme situations in order to attain deeper kinds of realism” (1). This writing style is seen in Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. Flannery O’Connor uses many techniques to gain the reader’s attention and keep them captivated. One way that O’Connor does this is by revolving her stories around symbols and integrating religious elements into her works. O’Connor is widely recognized for incorporating her Catholic faith into her stories. “She was a devout Roman Catholic, with a Southern upbringing” (Whitt 1). There are many types of ways to interpret “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. One method is by using formalist criticism. Formalist criticism exists when a reader can approach, analyze, and understand a story by using elements like the setting and symbolism.
Flannery O’Connor short story “A Good man is Hard to Find” displays a broken, disrespectful, and rude family taking a trip to Florida, but along the way the family stumbles upon a group of escaped convicts. In the short story the grandmother, an exceedingly traditional and moral virtue women, uses the word “good” frequently throughout the story. Other characters in the story like the Misfit and Bailey uses the word good aswell, but in a different sense. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the word good is defined by the word’s traditional meaning, due to the fact the grandmother is a traditional women and uses the word most often over the other characters.