The Journey in A Good Man Is Hard to Find

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Recommended: Character analysis on a good man is hard to find

In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” it is time for a trip to Florida for a family vacation. About half way through their journey, Bailey, the father within the family, reluctantly falls for the convincing of his children, John Wesley and June Star, and takes them to see the old plantation home the grandmother had previously mentioned. He turns on to the dirt road the grandmother says the house is on and drives for quite some time; the grandmother realizes the house is actually in Tennessee and not in Georgia. It is at this point where the stowed away Pitty Sing escapes from the basket and latches to Bailey’s neck. Bailey wrecks the car and the children’s mother breaks her shoulder, but there are no other injuries, which upsets June Star more than the fact that an accident has actually occurred. As the family sits and waits, a car comes along, but it is not the kind of help they were expecting. It is the Misfit and his two-man posse of Bobby Lee and Hiram. The grandmother recognizes the Misfit and tries to convince him that he is a good man and “comes from good people” and does not want to kill the family, but primarily her, a lady. Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” employs the journey archetype to illustrate that selfishness and manipulation will not always allow one to get through life a winner.
An archetype is a reoccurring image, symbol, character or situation used to express a universal concept. The journey archetype is one of the most frequently used. It sends a character, whether they know or are unknowingly sent, to search for the truth of a piece of information in their life. That journey includes a series of trials and tribulations for the character to face in order to gain a grasp as to why they are on this ...

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...ut, touched The Misfit’s shoulder and he shot her three times. When Bobby Lee and Hiram returned, the grandmother was laying in a puddle of blood looking up at a cloudless sky with a smile on her face. The Misfit says, “She would of been a good woman if there had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”
In the end, before her death, the grandmother realizes that the only real “Good Man” who was so hard to find, is Jesus. It is possible to find Him, but it took a faith journey that nobody expected to take, including herself. She had to dump all of her manipulative, self-absorbed manners, as well as her focus on class and external showings of her Christian beliefs. In exchange for all of her worldly effects, she received the grace that she had been searching for her whole life. In the end, the grandmother received her Grace and went on to Paradise.

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