Similarities Between The Veldt And A Good Man Is Hard To Find

As seen through remarkable works of literature, characters with unstable morals and actions paired with a significant climax are essential to a great story. Many excellent works of this genre focus on the actions of these characters, which portray questionable morals and eventually lead to their own destruction. These types of characters appear in both short stories “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, being the parents in “The Veldt” and the Grandma in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. In both situations, the decisions of these characters made throughout the stories showed significant selfishness. The Grandma decided to sidetrack her whole family because she simply wanted to see a house and the

parents decided to buy machines to do their parental jobs for them because they knew it would be more efficient if they didn’t have to deal with the troubles of raising children.

As a result, both characters had to face the consequences of their selfishness in a climatic ending to both stories, where the grandma’s family ended up being killed and the parents were locked in a room by their children and fed to the lions. Therefore, a theme portrayed through the short stories “The Veldt” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is that the easy way isn’t always the best way.
Considering how difficult life can be at times, people tend to take the easy road at every chance they get, despite the immoral consequences of their actions. The character in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” that made these type of decisions was the Grandma. She takes the easy way by lying in order to convince her family to sidetrack to a house that doesn’t exist, and then upon realizing that she was mistaken, causing a car crash. Upon recognizing this, she thinks “the thought was so embarrassing that she turned red in the face and her eyes dilated and her feet jumped up… the car turned over once and fell right-side-up in a gulch off the side of the road.” This describes the climatic event

which shows that taking the easy way by lying was a direct cause of an accident that ends with the murder of her entire family. The shock of realizing that the house was in Tennessee and not Georgia was so great that she jumped a little, opening the container that the cat was in, causing the cat to jump on Bailey, who then crashed the car into a “gulch off the side of the road.” Therefore, her actions were what caused the crash and the killing of her family with little outside influence. Another instance where the Grandma takes the easy way out was directly after the car crashes, when everyone is suffering from the initial shock of the crash. O’Connor describes “the grandmother was curled up, hoping she was injured so that Bailey’s wrath would not come down on her all at once. The horrible thought she had before the accident was that the house was not in Georgia but in Tennessee.” Despite the accident being her fault, she pretends to be injured to avoid slight punishment of being yelled at by Bailey. The degree of her deceitfulness is shown through her display of dishonesty even after causing a traumatic car crash. These selfish qualities suggest that she is the type of person who would take the easy road at every opportunity, even if it entails lying to the people you love and hurting them in the process.
In addition to showing negative morals, taking the easy way regardless of the repercussions is a sign of selfishness. In “The Veldt” the parents make a decision to buy machines that do their parental jobs for them. It can be assumed that the parents made this decision because it appeared easiest for them, despite knowing that substituting technology for parents would at least lead to a weaker relationship between the parents and children. “‘Don’t let them do it!’ wailed Peter at the ceiling, as if he was talking to the house, the nursery. ‘Don’t let father kill everything.’ He turned to his father. ‘Oh, I hate you!’” Peter’s personification of the technology shows the degree of emotional damage that he has suffered. By referring to turning off the machines as “killing” them suggests that he was feeling grief because it felt as though something/someone that he was attached to was dying. This exemplifies the liability of the parents because they were the ones that made the initial decision to purchase the machines. As the parents realize their mistakes, Mrs. Hadley says “‘I feel like I don’t belong here. The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid. Can I compete with the African Veldt? Can I give a bath and scrub the children as efficiently or as quickly as the automatic scrub bath can? I cannot.’” They are so blind to the selfishness and harmful effects of their decisions that it took years of taking the easy road by letting machines raise her children for Mrs. Hadley to realize what it had done to her family, and by that time it was much too late.
Many great novels are formed around a character or characters with controversial morals and whose selfish actions eventually lead to a climatic event.

The main characters in “The Veldt” who so prominently exhibited reckless decision-making were the parents. Their most significant decision concerning the wellness of their children was their choice to purchase a number of machines that would complete everyday tasks for their children such as tying their shoes, bathing them, and feeding them, leading them to become dependent on the machines rather than their parents. Therefore, their initial reaction to being told that the machines were being taken away was to be angry. Their son screams, “‘Don’t let them switch off the nursery and the house,’ he was saying. Mr. and Mrs. George Hadley beat at the door… Mr. and Mrs. Hadley screamed.” The children’s immediate reaction showed that the technology had a significant influence on them. The main responsibility of all parents is to think carefully about every decision regarding their children, which they failed to do when making this decision. As a result, the technology had a negative impact on the children, where they became so reliant on the technology to complete everyday activities that they would not to be able to function when they were turned off. Another character who displayed controversial morals and selfishness was the grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. She lied multiple times throughout the short period

of time that the story described. She began by lying to her family telling the children “‘There was a secret panel in this house,’ she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing she were. ‘And the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found.’” She takes advantage of the naivety of her grandchildren and kindness of her son in order to get what she wants. These decisions to lie to her family, convince them that the place exists, and refrain from mentioning the murder on the lose all reflect bad morals and poor judgment. Accordingly, her mistakes result in a car accident and then the killing of her family, proving that taking the easy way and being selfish can have a negative impact on your life.