Theme Of Good And Evil In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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Good and Evil are some themes present in O’Connor’s short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find.” This story is about a grandmother that claims herself to be a "good" woman. She suffers terribly due to her poor judgement, and later learns the true meaning of "good" when she faces something "evil," in this case it is the Misfit. The grandmother later becomes “good” through her encounter with the Misfit. This story points out that only through conflict “good” can be found. The grandmother lives in Georgia with her son, her daughter-in law, and her grandchildren. In the beginning of the story the family is getting ready to go to Florida. The grandmother does not want to go, instead she wants to go to Tennessee to visit relatives. This is an example of where the grandmother is just thinking about herself and that she is not actually “good”. She wants the family to go to Tennessee just for for her own needs. She also does not want to go because there is a man who has escaped from prison and she read that he is making his way towards Florida, “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 those people.” (O’Connor 1042) The day of the trip the grandmother is the first one to be ready, this way she is able to bring the cat along. She does not want to leave the cat behind because “he would miss her too much.” (O’Connor 1043) By this comment we see that she thinks she is the most important person in the family, having to bring whatever she wants. When the family is leaving, everyone is in comfortable traveling clothes except the grandmother who dresses formally. She had on a "navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim a... ... middle of paper ... ... kill her. She believes “Jesus will help you.” (O’Connor 1052) The Misfit instead blames Jesus for all the evil, "Jesus thrown everything off balance." (O’Connor 1052) The grandmother begins to transform into someone different. She no longer looks down on the Misfit, but sees him as her own child “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” (O’Connor 1052) I think that with her finding God, it gave her a chance to get rid of the evil inside her. The Misfit has given up on everything, and feels that there is no purpose to his life, “it’s no real pleasure in life.” (O’Connor 1053) At this moment the grandmother’s true side comes out as she finally sees what she has done in her life. At this point the Misfit realizes this too, and notices how the grandmother was starting to persuade him, and then he finally shoots her in order for her to stop talking.

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