In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, the character of the unnamed grandmother makes remarks that shows that she believes that she is superior to her family and anyone else of the modern age. The grandmother makes multiple comments about the fact that she is a lady. She even goes as far as to pin purple flowers to her dress for everyone to know she is a lady if she so happens to be a victim of a car accident. Though she believes in a religious, moral code, the fact that she also believes herself to be superior to others justifies the motive of her actions of being dishonest, selfish, manipulative, and derogatory. Going against her moral code, the grandmother, is dishonest with multiple characters in the story. When trying to …show more content…
The number one motive for her selfishness derives from the expectations of being a high class, God fearing “lady” and its importance to her. She would rather go to Tennessee and visit her acquaintances, than go to Florida. She would rather bring her cat in secret rather than leave him behind. She would rather stop and see a plantation house than honor the wishes of her son to keep going. If her children and grandchildren did not agree with doing what she would rather do, she would fabricate stories intriguing enough to sway their decision or knowingly lie to dodge any shame. The grandmother reveals her selfishness clearly when she fears the end of her life. Upon realizing the man who stopped to help the family after the wreck was The Misfit she almost immediately starts pleading for mercy on her life. She continues to beg The Misfit to excuse her from the systematic murder of her own family with the excuse being that she is a lady. In the beginning of the story, the grandmother proves herself manipulative by using emotion and fear of The Misfit to manipulate her son and his family into changing their mind about wanting to travel to Florida instead of Tennessee. Later she uses the tuned out ears of the parents and the anxious ears of the children to get them excited about going to visit an old plantation home that is not on their father’s detour list. The children beg their parents to let them go to the plantation
I feel that the Grandmother in the story 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' suffers from psychological conditions. She does not care at all about anyone but herself. I feel that she may even be narcissistic. It is ironic because she would be expected to look out for her family. The Cambridge Dictionary defines narcissism as 'too much interest in and admiration for your own physical appearance and/or your own abilities' It is ironic because she would be expected to look out for her family, however in reality she only really looks out for herself. She shows how self centered she really is many times throughout the story. She displays a complete lack of regard for what anyone else wants to do. All she cares about at first is what ...
This essay will contrast a good and evil concept between two different stories. There is an obvious distinction that stands out between the stories; however they are similar in one way. In A Worn Path (Eudora Welty) and A Good Man is Hard to Find (Flannery O’Conner) the one thing that sticks out, is the main character in both stories. The main character in both stories being the grandmother. Grandmothers are of course an important part of the family. In each story we have a grandmother of a different race, appearance, and attitude. In each story the grandmothers take different journeys, but there is one thing they both face being treated disrespected. We live in a world in which the grandmother resides with the family and helps to take care of the grandchildren. In the world today things are different and times are still hard if not harder. We live in a time when respect is no longer earned. Now days it seems as if respect is not as important as it was in earlier years and it is evident in these two stories.
It’s not about her, she implies, it’s about taking “them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad.” (O’Connor 1) It’s amazing how her manipulative words can actually make it seem like she genuinely cares for the children when in reality, she is doing it so that she can get whatever she desires. It shows that the grandmother is so used to getting what she wants when the author states, “the next morning the grandmother was the first one in the car, ready to go.”(O’Connor 2) First of all, Baily never agreed to changing the destination of their trip, so why was she so eager to leave already? It is obvious the grandmother had thought about new ways to manipulate the rest of the family members overnight. That is why she was so eager to be the first one in the car to make it seem as if she was actually excited about the trip when she was actually excited about using her sinful
In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the grandmother is a typical Southern lady. This constant effort to present herself a Southern lady is where her pride is grounded. She criticizes the mother's traveling outfit, but she herself is wearing a prim and proper-and probably uncomfortable-outfit so that "anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady" (O'Connor, "A Good Man" 382). She recalls exactly how to find a certain plantation she used to visit, and the children convince their father to turn the car around. However, the grandmother realizes that the plantation is in another state but is too prideful to admit so. This pride follows her to the point of grace when The Misfit forces her to see reality.
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).
...n that saw her entire family murdered and still only thought about herself until the end. As for the Mis-Fit, he was only what he was, just like the grandmother. They were destined to cross paths and in the end grandma could not manipulate the one person she needed to so desperately. There is a saying “don’t speak it into existence,” the grandmother did just that.
The grandmother's character in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is also very selfish in her motivations. She felt she had to lie to her son, daughter-in-law and her grandchildren in order for her to be able to see that nice house again. "'There was a secret panel in this house' she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, 'and the story went that all the family sil...
The grandmother is the central character in the story "A good man is hard to find," by Flannery O'Connor. The grandmother is a manipulative, deceitful, and self-serving woman who lives in the past. She doesn't value her life as it is, but glorifies what it was like long ago when she saw life through rose-colored glasses. She is pre-scented by O'Connor as being a prim and proper lady dressed in a suit, hat, and white cotton gloves. This woman will do whatever it takes to get what she wants and she doesn't let anyone else's feelings stand in her way. She tries to justify her demands by convincing herself and her family that her way is not only the best way, but the only way. The grandmother is determined to change her family's vacation destination as she tries to manipulate her son into going to Tennessee instead of Florida. The grandmother says that "she couldn't answer to her conscience if she took the children in a direction where there was a convict on the loose." The children, they tell her "stay at home if you don't want to go." The grandmother then decides that she will have to go along after all, but she is already working on her own agenda. The grandmother is very deceitful, and she manages to sneak the cat in the car with her. She decides that she would like to visit an old plantation and begins her pursuit of convincing Bailey to agree to it. She describes the old house for the children adding mysterious details to pique their curiosity. "There was a secret panel in this house," she states cunningly knowing it is a lie. The grandmother always stretches the truth as much as possible. She not only lies to her family, but to herself as well. The grandmother doesn't live in the present, but in the past. She dresses in a suit to go on vacation. She states, "in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." She constantly tries to tell everyone what they should or should not do. She informs the children that they do not have good manners and that "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else." when she was a child.
The narrator starts the story giving background information about the grandmother and her son, Bailey. The narrator explains that the "grandmother didn't want to go to Florida" (320). Although a major conflict could result from her dislike of the family's choice of vacation spots, it does not. When the grandmother first speaks she asks Bailey to read a newspaper article that she has found. She attempts to change his mind about not going to Florida, by saying, "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people..." (320). Bailey does not ...
The grandmother is very adamant. Most humans are stubborn by nature. They refuse to alter their ideas regardless of circumstance. The grandmother was set on visiting Tennessee and visiting Florida was not an option. She did not care at all about why her family wanted to visit Florida. At every chance that arose, she attempted to change Bailey’s mind. She presents Bailey with many reasons as to why they shouldn’t go to Florida, but she doesn’t care at all about those things. She just needs an excuse for her family to go to Tennessee. The grandmother is only interested in her own motives, she pretends to be interested in the children and what is good for them. She dresses up very womanlike so people who didn’t know her would think that she was a lady. She shows that she cares about her self-image a lot and she seems to only care about herself.
Since the beginning of the story, the readers have come to known the grandmother as a spiteful old lady due to her repulsive and deceitful attitudes toward others. Right from the start, we can see the grandmother using her manipulative tactics on her family. “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.” (O’Connor 1) This initial quote shows an early indication that the grandmother is determined to obtain whatever she wants and will not allow anything to get in her way, even if it means manipulating her own family. This line already suggests that the grandmother may have sly motives concealed in her mind. “Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is a loose from the Federal Pen a...
“A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor explores the complexity of human nature. The unnamed grandmother is a perfect example of how contradictory a person’s beliefs and standards can be. She is indirectly manipulative, yet she holds herself to a higher, purer standard than the other characters. Not to mention, the grandmother is not as she first appear, and she is stuck on the views of the past and how they apply to her as a lady, whether the views are correct or not.
The story begins with the grandmother trying to persuade the family not to travel towards Florida but perhaps go to Tennessee instead. This is based on the grounds that “the Misfit”, a escaped criminal is on the loose somewhere in Florida. The Ironic part of this is that the grandmother is the only family member to conceive of bad things happening to the family. She bases this solely on the fact that they were traveling in the same direction as the Misfit. This negative thinking quite possibly could have led to the eventual rendezvous between the convict and the family.
Illustrating this point, the grandmother criticizes the children’s mother for their upbringing and compares the mother’s face to a cabbage. She also takes liberty to criticize others within her world, yet never analyzes her own selfishness or hypocritical actions. Unlike the grandmother, who simply assumes that she is morally superior to everyone else, the Misfit seriously questions the meaning of life and his role in it. “But as in all of O’Conner’s stories, the violent surface action only begins to suggest the depths and complexities of meaning embedded in the story” (Desmond, John 1). When the Misfit murders the family, the grandmother never begs him to spare her family. She does, however, plead for her own life because she can’t imagine the Misfit being willing to kill a lady. As the grandmother faces death at the hands of the Misfit, she realizes where she has gone wrong in life. Instead of being superior, she realizes that she is flawed; evidenced as she tells the Misfit that he is “one of her own
The grandma experiences conflict and no conflict, she acts differently in these situations. She is a weird character because she doesn't have a name, just grandma. The grandma goes everywhere when the family goes on trips. From the beginning she doesn't want to go to Florida, but the rest of the family does. She stretches the truth a lot about things that don’t need to be stretched. She is reading the newspaper and found an article about a guy they call the misfit escape from jail. She says “I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that on the loose”(1) this shows that she is afraid or scared of this man. The next morning grandma was the first person ready in the car, which is weird because she didn't want to go there in the first place. She takes her cat and Bailey (the father) doesn't want the cat to come but he doesn't know, I believe she did this on purpose. She starts to talk about a house that she remembers as a child. She convinces the kids to see it and Bailey. She convinces Bailey to go because she said that “It would be educational for the kids”(53). ...