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The portrayal of women in literature
The portrayal of women in literature
Literary analysis of "a good man is hard to find
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In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” Flannery O’Conner follows a family on their way to Florida. This family gets into some trouble along the way because of the grandmother and her big mouth. The focus of the narrative is on the grandmother and her not so typical lady ways. She is an older southern woman who thinks she is a lady based of what she wears and her way of speaking. Throughout the story, the grandmother acts selfishly, is judgmental and dishonest which put the family in danger. It is the grandmother’s lack of self-awareness about these characteristics that leads to the death of her family. The grandmother is very judgmental and her actions lead up to her family’s death. She calls a little boy a cute “little pick ninny” and we see her true colors. Pick ninny is a derogatory word towards black people and no good Christian woman would ever say those words (O’Connor 412). The grandmother tries very hard to be a good woman but her actions oppose everything she wants society to believe about her. The grandmother sees that her grandchildren are not the most behaved kids so she tells them they should be good people by listening and showing respect. She wants her grandchildren to have respect for their “native states and their parents and for everything else” (O’Connor 412). She tries to tell her grandchildren to be good …show more content…
They may even often immolate the same exact thing they see or hear from an adult. However, O’Connor puts the focus on the grandmother’s bad behavior to highlight her fate at the end of the story. Readers think the grandmother is a good person character because they relate her to their own grandmother. The grandmother puts her hand on the Misfit at the end of the story because she wants to try one also time to beg for her life. When she went on about the Misfit being a good person she was also begging fir help because she knew she was
The Grandmother is a bit of a traditionalist, and like a few of O’Connor’s characters is still living in “the old days” with outdated morals and beliefs, she truly believes the way she thinks and the things she says and does is the right and only way, when in reality that was not the case. She tends to make herself believe she is doing the right thing and being a good person when in actuality it can be quite the opposite. David Allen Cook says in hi...
The Grandmother often finds herself at odds with the rest of her family. Everyone feels her domineering attitude over her family, even the youngest child knows that she's "afraid she'd miss something she has to go everywhere we go"(Good Man 2). Yet this accusation doesn't seem to phase the grandmother, and when it is her fault alone that the family gets into the car accident and is found by the Misfit, she decides to try to talk her way out of this terrible predicament.
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 murderer was in the family’s presence. The grandmother was begging for grace from the misfit in every way possible. The character of the selfish grandmother, in Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” tries to use her manipulative ways to fight the Misfit’s urge to kill her. She is unrelenting in her actions to control those around her. Grandmother portrays a stubborn, devious character who wants what she wants and is going to see that she gets it.
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.
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.
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).
The granny and the misfit are two completely opposite characters that possess two different beliefs. The grandmother puts herself on a high pedestal and the way she calls the misfit ‘a good person’ based upon his family background gives the reader an idea of what the grandmother acknowledges to be considered as ‘good’. Self absorbed as sh...
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.
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 Flannery O’Conner’s, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the story begins with the family going on a road trip to Florida. The Grandmother who is very critical, selfish, judgmental, forgetful, and dishonest and almost enjoys manipulating others to get her way. The Grandmother holds herself in very high regard and
In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, by Flannery O’Connor (1953), the reader can see multiple cases of foreshadowing, and situational irony throughout the story. The grandmother has been depicted as a southern raised women who 's name remains a mystery throughout the story. She is characterized and holds all the traits of the protagonist and often finds secretive ways to benefit herself. The opening scenes provide the reader with an intuition that there is a killer on the loose that goes by the nickname Misfit, and he is going to be in the area of where the family is planning on traveling to. The grandmother has been distinguished as criticizing others and often finds devious ways to make herself happy as well as holding money more valuable than anything. The grandmother’s manipulative ways as well as her actions are what decides the fate of
O’Connor’s connection between good and evil now becomes relevant between the grandmother and the Misfit. The symbolism of evil appears when they witness a change in the light. “‘Ain’t a cloud in the sky,’ he remarked. ‘Don’t see no sun but don’t see no cloud neither’” (O’Connor 208). This suggests that the "bad" criminal has finally met the "good" grandmother. She quickly points out to him that he "wouldn’t shoot a lady" (O’Connor 208). She sets aside the family’s safety to benefit hers. She tries to convince the Misfit that he is in the same category of people with her. "I know you’re a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people" (O’Connor 208). In this situation O’Connor is basically explaining that people do anything in life that they believe are good even if their actions turn out to be bad. A true “good” person would be willing to give up their life to be “good,” and there can be no goal in living life other than being good. The grandmother’s use of religion shows her attempt to persuade the Misfit to ask for God’s forgiveness. The grandmother thinks that God will stand by her side because she “thinks” she is a good person, and nothing shall stand against her. The Misfit refuses to listen and believes that God is to blame for all his evil doings. O’Connor states, "Jesus thrown everything off balance" (O’Connor 211). he
In A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor writes of an imperfect family, who is directed on a quest, by an unreliable grandmother, that ultimately ends in their death. The family sets out from Atlanta on a trip to Florida, when they make an unplanned stop in rural Georgia. The grandmother asks them to stop on the side of a road to see a plantation she knew of when she was young; unfortunately, that plantation is in Tennessee and not in Georgia. Then the family has an car accident and is approached by the Misfit, a serial killer, who then kills them all. In A Good Man is Hard to Find, O’Connor includes elements of postmodernism, a theme of violence, and, most importantly, a recognition of grace in evil.
O’Connor clearly provides us that she never had the intent to be racist herself, but rather her character, possibly an influence in her life, is to blame. The grandmother shows her politeness to June, but also shows her rudeness by describing the dark colored boy in such racist terms, providing the reader with a sense of the "holy madness" that resides within her. The story contains eleven characters, of which only one illustrates her lack of coming together and recognizing everyone as a whole, rather than as separate races. Despite the obvious difference in language barriers, the grandmother does reflect a soft side. &