Compare And Contrast The Grandmother In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

733 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: A critical article about "a good man is hard to find

One can imagine an old lady with a cat, who appreciates respect towards herself, is stylish and likes to take care of herself. She 's elegant, yet a bit talkative and dramatic at the same time. In the story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" Flannery O ' Connor introduces to a similar character, "The grandmother" who is sophisticated and conservative in some ways. The short story begins with how the grandmother wants to take a road trip to Tennessee while the rest of the family wants to visit Florida for vacation. The grandmother seems stubborn because she consistently tries to convince her son to take the family to Tennessee instead of Florida. She reads the newspaper and says to her son, "Now look here, Bailey...see here, read this...Here this …show more content…

Furthermore, the grandmother discusses better times with Red Sam, owner of a restaurant, who the grandmother meets later in the story. "People are certainly not nice like they used to be," said the grandmother ( O 'Connor 714). The grandmother is moderate and traditional because, throughout the story, she refers back to the "old times." The grandmother is a humorous character because during the trip, "[She] took cat naps and woke up every few minutes with her own snoring." Later, she recalled an old plantation she once visited. She then over exaggerates the plantation story and say 's "There was a secret panel in this house" ( O 'Connor 714) knowingly she wasn 't telling the truth. And of course, the grandchildren whined desperately and the family drove off to see the house with a secret …show more content…

Although no one was killed, the grandmother limped out of the car and said "I believe I have injured an organ," still trying to seek attention. In addition, when the family sees a car from on top of the hill, "The grandmother stood up and waved both arms dramatically to attract their attention." ( O 'Connor 716) Furthermore, three men came out of the car and the grandmother thought that the driver 's face looked familiar. She later recognized him from the newspaper she had read and said: "You 're The Misfit!" The grandmother began to cry and said: "You wouldn 't shoot a lady, would you?" ( O 'Connor 717) More than anything the grandmother is super chatty because even after she figures out the man is the Misfit she continues with her talking and say 's "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

Show More
Related

  • A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor

    632 Words  | 2 Pages

    Even though the Grandmother shows to be a victim of rudeness, hostile statements, and dangerous situations, she still stood by her morals regardless of the situations. In the first paragraph, the grandmother is a victim of her grandchildren and at the end, she is a victim of a murderer who ironically is much nicer to her than her own grandchildren! It is easily observed that the grandmother’s morals involve making her environment as pleasant as her personality. At the beginning, you can see how the grandchildren are making hostile comments towards the grandmother about going on the trip with them. As she sits in the back seat with the hostile children instead of allowing them to ruin her mood, she decides to point out the “ interesting details of the scenery- stone mountain’s; the blue granite, the brilliant red clay banks slightly streaked with purple”…. (pg 199). At the end while a victim of a murderer the grandmother still tried to make some good out of the situation. “Ain’t a cloud in the sky” he remarked. “Yes it is a beautiful day” said the grandmother. “Listen you shouldn’t call yourself misfit because I know you’re a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell.” The grandmother said (pg 205). As stated earlier the grandmother was dedicated to keeping her moral of making her environment as pleasant as her personality!

    Read More

  • Comparing Characters in O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find and Revelation

    847 Words  | 2 Pages

    The grandmother and The Misfit of Flannery O'Connor's 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' are backward, opposite images of each other. However, the grandmother does have similarities with the character, Ruby Turpin in O'Connor's short story, 'Revelation'.

    Read More

  • The Grandmother in Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find

    448 Words  | 1 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • Armond Boudreaux's 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find'

    425 Words  | 1 Pages

    I knew the grandmother was not a good human because she tried to save herself while her entire family was being murdered, and also she is an old southern belle. Besides, she considered herself to be a Christian, and was judging the Misfits did not help her character either. Author Flannery O’Connor does a great job of leaving the readers speechless and curious at the same time in the short article “ A Good Man is Hard to Find.”

    Read More

  • A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O'Connor

    581 Words  | 2 Pages

    She gets dressed up for a car trip so that, on the off chance that they would be in a car wreck and that in that wreck she would be thrown from the car and laying on the pavement, she would be happy because the people passing would think that she is a lady. This represents us as humans because daily we choose to be way too self-conscience. Think about females and make-up. Make-up is a perfect example of us caring a great deal about what others think of us. She is also very selfish in her endeavors. Instead of caring about what is best for the family, she wants to go to Tennessee because she has friends there whom she would like to see.

    Read More

  • The Misfit and the Grandmother in Flannery O’ Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

    941 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • The Grandmother in A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor

    742 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Effective Use of Tone in Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find

    659 Words  | 2 Pages

    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 ...

    Read More

  • Perceptions of Human Nature in Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Revelation

    1617 Words  | 4 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • The Jilting Of Granny Weatherall By Katherine Ann Porter

    395 Words  | 1 Pages

    The reader learns Granny Weatherall has worked hard all her whole life, and frequently tells herself she did a good job. Granny Weatherall is determined to prove that she does not need a man figure to help her. Granny Weatherall was left at the alter and had to stand strong after. “What does a woman do when she has put on the white veil and set out the white cake for a man and he doesn’t come” (919)? Granny Weatherall then married a different man who died at a young age, leaving Granny Weatherall to a life as a single mother. Granny Weatherall thinks of events that made her stronger such as digging holes for fence posts, "riding country roads in the winter when women had their babies" (page), taking care of sick animals and sick children. Though Granny Weatherall tries to assure herself that her life has been good other events in her life will say the

    Read More

  • Manipulation and Deception in A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor

    1487 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find and Good Country People

    2670 Words  | 6 Pages

    In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, O’Connor introduces the reader to a family representative of the old and new Southern culture. The grandmother represents the old South by the way in which she focuses on her appearnace, manners, and gentile ladylike behavior. O’Connor writes “her collars and cuffs were organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady”(O’Connor 118). In this short story, “the wild diproportion of the terms, the vapid composure that summons up the ultimate violence only to treat it as a rare social opportuinty, and the cool irony with which O’Connor presents the sentence makes it both fearful and ludicrous”(Asals 132). The irony that O’Connor uses points out the appalling characteristics of the grandmother’s self-deception that her clothes make her a lady and turns it into a comic matter. Flannery O’Connor goes to great length to give the reader insight into the characters by describing their clothes and attitudes. The fact that the grandmother took so much time in preparing herself for the trip exemplifies the old Southern tradition of self-presentation and self-pride. The grandmother takes pride in the way she presents herself because she wants everyone to know that she is a “lady”.

    Read More

  • A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'connor

    1496 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Irony in a Good Man is Hard to Find

    954 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Changing Minds

    935 Words  | 2 Pages

    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). ...

    Read More

More about Compare And Contrast The Grandmother In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Open Document