A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

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Nabela Hasnain Professor Shapiro English 301 18 March 2014 God's Grace Flannery O'Connor is a renowned southern author known for her violent and shocking stories. She was brought up as a Catholic which influenced most, if not all, her fiction. O'Connor believed that her writing was inextricable from her Christian beliefs. She concluded that without her beliefs she would not be able to write (O'Connor 6). Even though most of her work are macabre and brutal her stories are deeply rooted in the belief of faith and God. O'Connor usually depicts salvation with the use of violence and death though her characters. The characters often face a jarring situation that awaken or even alter their faith in the moment of crisis. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," a well known story of hers, demonstrates this principle when the grandmother has an epiphany after being shocked into spiritual awareness by the murder, The Misfit, who kills her and her family. Since the grandmother had an epiphany she was granted God's grace. Stephen Bandy, author of "One of My Babies: The Misfit and the Grandmother," stated that, "God is God: He can do anything He wants--even save people like the grandmother and The Misfit" (Bethea 246). This means that even people who are evil still have the hope to get into Heaven if God grants them that grace. This is also the theme for this short story; despite humans who have sinned, have weaknesses, and have flaws God still grants them salvation with His grace. The point of view and tone for this story helps relate to the theme. The narrative is in third person point of view with limited omniscient. This means that the reader is able to go inside the mind of the grandmother and know what she is thinking and feeling. The only ot... ... middle of paper ... ...mitted her to pass peacefully. God has the power to grant a person grace regardless of the fact if they were unfit to be blessed. Both the grandmother and The Misfit were inadequate to have the opportunity of salvation because the grandmother was manipulative, selfless, and a liar while The misfit was a murderer. So, even though, the grandmother was petty and The Misfit was cruel they, together, found valuable lessons, meanings and moral good that was beyond the world of goods and means (Link 125). The grandmother gets grace at the very end because even though she was alienated, the grandmother was able to experience an epiphany which resulted in her salvation (Keil 45). The Misfit does not fully have God's blessing but seems as if though he is on the way in obtaining it. In the end everyone has the capability in receiving God's grace and are able to go to heaven.

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    She claimed that “the world in general would not notice God’s presence unless something monumental occurred” (Wilson). This idea is echoed within “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, as it is the grotesque event of her family being murdered that ultimately shocks the grandmother into ending her selfish habits and recognizing God’s grace. Additionally, shocking events such as the car crash may result in the reader recognizing God’s grace in their own life, as they are either lucky enough to have never been in a car accident, or lucky enough to have survived one. Similar to her method of teaching by “negative example”, O’Connor uses traumatic events to emphasize the positive aspects of life. O’Connor wrote in 1955, “if you believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time you struggle to endure it” (Fitzgerald), which is the exact message that she is trying to convey within her short stories. She does not create shocking, grotesque plots in hopes of disgusting or scaring the reader. Rather, she hopes that these plots will help the reader to understand the goodness that God has granted them within their everyday

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