Personification Of Selfishness In O Flannery's A Good Man Is Hard To Find

In O 'Connor, Flannery‘s “A good Man is Hard to find” the reader is presented with a living and breathing personification of selfishness and overly misguides sense of what’s good and what’s bad. The grandma in her warped sense of moral conscience at time seems to symbolize the character flaws apparent in all humans. Her selfishness is on full display throughout the entirety of the story and it ultimately plays a significant role in her untimely death. Her final sense of what’s morally correct in society leaves the reader with an obvious sense of renewed grace which eventually marks the end of the story. In this paper I will discuss how the grandma’s character in “A Good man is Hard to Find” is made to symbolize some of the most obvious imperfections

She uses her grandkids as a source for her argument and pleads to her son that they would much rather visit Tennessee than Florida. The grandma even resorts to scare tactics and mentions and escaped killer who the newspapers speculate to be heading towards Florida as a reason for taking the trip to Tennessee. Though these instances may seem like small instances of selfishness to some readers these instances are still acts of blatant selfish behavior by a senior figure. Instead of being grateful for any vacation she could possibly partake in with her son and her grandchildren she rather complain and mope about going to Florida. These example of small acts of selfishness in the story can be interpreted as acts of everyday selfishness every human regularly experiences that can eventually accumulate up and become a negative detriment to the characters of many. While on the trip the grandma experiences fond memories of an old plantation she used to visit when she was a kid. She pleads with her son to let her visit the plantation and in order to get him to abide she lies to her grandkids

Towards the end of the story the grandma finds herself staring down the barrel of a gun held by a known killer named the misfit. It at these final moments in which she displays true humility and uncharacteristic unselfish behavior towards her killer and his stories. In the last paragraphs of the story the grandmother exclaims how the misfit could have been one of her own children and that he was a good man from good people. These statements show a relinquishing of the grandmas past feelings of superiority and immaculate righteousness, towards a more realistic sense of equivalence and forgiveness. Some writers even argue that it as this moments when the grandma finds the true believing’s of the Christian savior Jesus. According to Arthur E. Bethea “A Good Man Is Hard to Find" involves a transference of grace from God to the grandmother, and the grandmother 's role is of a grace-bringer” (Bethea 247). This statement from the author details how the grandma’s actions towards the misfit and her change in her personality ultimately symbolized the acquiring of grace for the