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Analysis of Flannery O'Connor's Story, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Literary criticism flannery o’connor’s “a good man is hard to find”
Flannery O’Connor, ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’
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Reader Reflection Three
In "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" a short story written by Flannery O'Connor in 1953. There are ten characters in this story. One of the characters doesn't really appear in the story but is a flashback to when the Grandmother was younger and that character is Edgar Atkins Teagarden. The story starts off with the Grandmother arguing that she does not want to go to Florida because there is a misfit on the loose. Bailey the farther decides to go anyway and on the way to Florida they stop at gas station and talk to the owner Red Sammy Butts. While the family was at the gas station Red Sammy Butts tells them about how he let us in people get gas on credit and they didn't pay him back. Then the family is driving down the road and grandma started to reminisce and convince them to go to this house with a secret panel. Bailey the father doesn't want go but the kids yelling and screaming so he decides to go down the road. The family starts down the road with and a cat that grandma was trying to hide in a basket causes the father flip the car. After the cars done and lands in a ditch the mother has broken shoulder and scratch on her face but no one's really injured. The Grandmother is trying to convince everyone that she is injured then a vehicle stops to men with guns get out. Three men
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had down the ditch take the dad to the woods shooting then they come back take the kids and mom. Grandma talks to The Misfit tries to convince him that he's a good man then The Misfit shoots the grandma three times. All the characters in the story are flawed in some way shape or form. For example, grandma lies and hides from the family. The kids there and argue with one another and are disrespectful when they're at a gas station. The mother is a flat character that is holding the baby most of the time. The Misfit is an interesting character because he thinks he is a good person but he talked about having passion for hurting and mistreating people. He is also fascinated with how Jesus raised the dead. At the end of the story the kids and mother while their father's hand and be united in death. The Grandmother tells Red Sammy Butts he is a good man she also tells The Misfit that he's a good man. The characters in the story seem to reminisce about past and better days. The Grandmother talks about a man used to bring her watermelons and his initials on then she also tells the story of one day the watermelon got eaten by a little child because the initials were E A T.
And the child took that to mean eat but it was actually the man's name which was Edgar Atkins Teagarden. The Misfit talks about how he didn't know what he went to jail for and how same thing happened to Jesus but they did not have papers on Jesus. The Misfit is a sociopath cold blood or killer with no motion at the very and he suggests that someone should shut the Grandmother every day of her life this says a lot about his character and what he thought of the
Grandmother.
Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find is one of the most well-known short stories in American history. A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a disturbing short story that exemplifies grace in extremity as well as the threat of an intruder. The story tells of an elderly grandmother and her family who embark on a road trip to Florida. The grandmother is a stubborn old woman with a low sense of morality. While on the trip, the grandmother convinces her son to take a detour which results in a broken down car and an encounter with a convicted fugitive, The Misfit. Although the grandmother pleads for mercy, The Misfit kills off the rest of her family. Through the grace she finds in her extreme circumstance, the grandmother calls The Misfit her own and implores him to spare her life. The Misfit does not oblige her and states after her death, “She would have been a good woman if it had been someone to shoot her every day of her life.” Through Flannery O’Connor’s disturbing and shocking display of the grandmother’s demise, she gives the reader a sense of the threatening power of an intruder and the idea of extreme situations bringing about a state of grace. The reason for such a powerful work may have resulted from Flannery O’Connor’s religious upbringing as well as the state of the nation at the time.
In this short story, O’Connor depicts a violent character to the reader known as ‘The Misfit.’ The Misfit can be described as a distorted, violent character that questions the true meaning of life and his role within it. The Misfit uses the anger that he possesses inside of him as a form of violence, and this is why he is known to be a wanted murderer, ever since he escaped from the penitentiary. This Misfit was put into the penitentiary when he was accused of murdering his own father, which might have been a lie based upon the head-doctors accusations. O’Connor reveals violence in a very peculiar way, and this is based upon the struggle of living in a world where finding a good man is hard to find in our society.
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.
The Misfit; is the epitome of the Godless man in a Godless society. He is a killer who is also raised without spirituality as the old woman's children. He is the representative of evil.
The grandmother has never truly understood what being saved means. She is also ignorant to what salvation is. The Misfit is missing the ability to empathize and bind with other people. He does not hold respect for human life. In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, it says “She would of been a good woman, The Misfit said, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” (430). In “‘One of My Babies’: The misfit and the grandmother”, written by Stephen C. Bandy, it says “The Misfit has already directed the execution of the Grandmother’s entire family, and it must be obvious to all including reader and the Grandmother, that she is next to die” (108). These example justifies that The Misfit does not have any regard for human life. The only people that he has are the two goons that help him murder people. The grandmother sees that The Misfit has never had anyone to take care of him. At the end of this story she tries reach out to him on a spiritual level, but he shoots her three times in the chest as soon as she touches
Pride is encouraged in some and hated in others. Pride in elderly people is excused because they are considered wise. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, the grandmother’s pride . The grandmother enters the story trying and failing to take control of the choice of where the family should go on vacation. She is very concerned about appearances in public but allows herself to be rude in private. The grandmother manipulates those around her to get what she wants. The Misfit does not know her or much about her, but he understands her character. The grandmother assumes everyone is inferior to her.
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
An extreme act is almost necessary to bring about the true reflection on one’s life and really question whether or not they are worthy of salvation. The most influential person in determining your after life could have not the slightest meaning to you now. Flannery O’Connor’s writing reflects in her own beliefs. Kaplan creates a case that “The Grandmother’s ability to accept such a death is therefore the supreme test of her faith,” (Kaplan 905). This associates to the story well; Flannery O’Connor is also in her own life suffering from a disease that, in some aspects, should take her faith into inquiry.
This death imagery creates an ominous tone for the reader. She uses many different elements to foreshadow the deaths of all six family members in the conclusion of the story. She also uses a great deal of irony. The grandmother puts her hat on before the family leaves in case anything were to happen to them. She wants people to know for sure that she is a lady when her body is found if something does happen and she dies. When she does die in the conclusion of the story, she ironically does not even have her hat on, as she has let it fall to the ground. The grandmother also tells the family about the misfit before they leave. She says “I wouldn’t take my grandchildren in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it” (O’ Connor 852). Yet, ironically, it is her directions that lead the entire family right to the misfit. She asks John Wesley what he would do if the Misfit were to catch him. John Wesley replies, “I’d smack his face” (O’ Connor 853). However, when captured by the Misfit, John Wesley does not move a muscle. On the drive there, the family passes six graves, foreshadowing the deaths of all six family members that are in the car. When they see the Misfit’s car, it is described as a hearse, which dead people are carried in. Throughout the story, the grandmother seems to judge whether a person is good or bad based on physical appearance and behavior. After the family’s car
In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, the author uses the character of the grandmother to show the dangers of self-centeredness. Although the grandmother lacks self-awareness, she still describes herself as a good woman, a lady. The grandmother is an old, southern, Caucasian woman; her way of speaking and how she dresses are indications that she considers herself a lady. Throughout the story, the grandmother’s selfishness, judgmental actions, dishonesty, and forgetfulness 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.
Flannery O’Connor is a Southern author that writes about very violent and strange stories. O’Connor establishes a much need style of writing that capture reader feeling and emotions. This paper will identify some of the author’s hidden emotion and state of imagination to keep the reader on edge. This story is clearly more about the grandmother start from the beginning to end expressing her point of view. The grandmothers discuss her role and religious experience when she meets the Misfits. I think all critics will focus on the grandmother to identify all problems and to have a religious connection with God.
The Misfit is a complex character created by Flannery O’Connor. He is talked about first when the Grandmother reads his criminal background at the breakfast table. Right when the Misfit meets the family the Grandmother starts questioning his faith and past, and through the Grandmother’s persistent behavior that you find out the truth behind the Misfits hard exterior. The reader understands that the Misfit was brought up by parents who were the “finest people in the world” (O’Connor 1312). With this type of background, how can one expect the Misfit to be such a cold blooded killer? Because of his kind nature in the beginning of the story, it’s almost impossible to understand how he could just kill. Through deeper analysis one can characterize the Misfit with a heart of gold, but the mind of a villain. This characterization is true because somewhere along the line he was wrongly accused of murdering his father and was brutally punished and he was mistreated by the justice system. The Misfit knows he was innocent and neither Jesus nor the justice system could rid him of the punish he received. It’s not because he is an evil person, he says himself “I never was a bad boy that I remember of… but somewhere along the line I done something wrong and got sent to the penitentiary. I was buried alive” (1314). The Misfit states he was never the worst person, but he also says himself that he was never good either, so the reason behind the Misfit’s homicidal condition is not because he is an evil person but due to his distrust in Jesus Christ and the justice system.
Just some of the last pleading words of the grandmother in the story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor. In the story, the author uses colloquialism, point-of-view, foreshadowing, and irony, as well as other rhetorical devices, to portray the satire of southern beliefs and religion throughout the entire piece.
A family is going on a trip to Florida, but the grandma tries to convince them to go to Tennessee instead after reading an article about “The Misfit”. The Misfit is an escaped criminal who is allegedly going to Florida. On the way to Florida, Bailey, the grandmother’s son, decides to take a short detour to a house that the grandmother had talked about. The family got in a car accident and became stranded on the side of the road. Finally, a car stops to help the family. The grandma recognizes on of the men who stopped as the Misfit. The Misfit then kills the family in groups; first the boys, then the girls and the baby, excluding the grandmother. The grandmother tries to talk the Misfit out of killing her, but she eventually ends up being killed too.