Flannery O’Connor was born into a Catholic family in Savannah, Georgia. O’Connor is now sometimes considered a Christian writer because she incorporates her religion into a lot of her stories.“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is set in the year 1955, it was an era where tradition was fading away, and the children were becoming more rebellious towards traditional morals (Bouchard). The children in this story reflect this idea. The ideal family is on a vacation. On the way to their destination the grandmother convinces her son to visit a house from her past. The family has a car accident on the way to the house, but right before the accident the grandmother realizes that the house she is thinking of is in another state. The first people to stop and …show more content…
help the family is the criminal The Misfit and his two accomplices. While the two accomplices are murdering the family the grandmotheris attempting to persuade The Misfit to spare her life. In the end the grandmother redeems herself of her sins, but The Misfit still kills her. In the book Compact Literature the authors explain O’Connor’s stories as “infused with grim humor and a fierce belief in the possibility of spiritual redemption”. O’Connor uses the characters, conflict and motif to represent the theme of selfishness throughout the story of “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. The character of the grandmother is very manipulative throughout the story, she uses people to get what she wants.
When she wanted to visit the old house,but knew her son wouldn’t take her she manipulated the children into getting their father to take them. She manipulated the children by telling them of a secret panel in the old house that could still have silver in it. The grandmother is also selfish at the end of the story when she is begging for her life while The Misfit and his accomplices are murdering her family. With the circumstances given the grandmother should’ve been begging or even trying to sacrifice her own life for her families. The daughter Junes also contributes to this theme because of her attitude towards people. After reading the first ten lines the reader can immediately infer that June Star isn’t the ideal little girl. The comments she makes to the grandmother aren’t comments that a granddaughter should be telling her grandmother. In another part of the story the family stops to eat at Red Sammy’s June Star starts dancing and earns a compliment from Red Sam’s wife. Instead of thanking her for the compliment June star insults Red and his wife by saying “I wouldn’t live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks!” June is being very inconsiderate and selfish in these
situations. The family dynamic is considered a conflict because at first glance the family could be seen as a regular family, but if someone were to get to know them they would realize that they are all selfish, rude and inconsiderate people. The family does what a family is expected to do but, doesn’t have the connection or relationship a family should have (Hendricks, T.W and May). When they walked in the restaurant they were most likely perceived as a nice, and happy family, but when they started interacting with each other they portrayed the opposite. The reader gets a glimpse of this with the daughter’s disrespectful attitude when she insults the owners of the restaurant. This continues into the parents when they don’t try to resolve the situation. The grandmother tries to resolve it but doesn’t, instead she insults her family. The motif of religion is very obvious at the end of the story. Before The Misfit shoots the grandmother, she is constantly bringing up religion in their conversation. She first presents this idea when asks The Misfit “Do you ever pray?” At this point the grandmother wasn’t doing it for the right reason, she was doing this to try and persuade or make The Misfit have a change of heart and spare her life. The selfishness of the grandmother is very obvious in the part since she is trying to get him to follow any religion, not for his benefit, but for hers. To this question he says no and eventually says that he doesn’t need anybody’s help and is fine by himself. This can be perceived as selfish since the grandmother is offering him help through religion but he doesn’t want to take it, and says that the only important opinion in his life is his. The grandmother eventually does redeem herself when she tells The Misfit “You’re one of my own children!” This is the only part of the story when the grandmother is thinking of other people instead of being the way she is throughout the whole story, selfish. The theme of selfishness is shown throughout the story by almost all the characters. Most of them have no consideration for what other people are feeling. They display it in their family dynamics, they represent one thing, but reflect another. The third element is religious motif. The grandmother uses religion as she tries to save herself by trying to get The Misfit to turn to god. The characters as individuals and the family together mistreat, manipulate and disrespect people to get their way and what they want.
As I read Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, I find myself being completely consumed by the rich tale that the author weaves; a tragic and ironic tale that concisely and precisely utilizes irony and foreshadowing with expert skill. As the story progresses, it is readily apparent that the story will end in a tragic and predictable state due to the devices which O’Connor expertly employs and thusly, I find that I cannot stop reading it; the plot grows thicker with every sentence and by doing so, the characters within the story are infinitely real in my mind’s eye. As I consider these factors, the story focuses on two main characters; that of the grandmother, who comes across as self-centered and self-serving and The Misfit, a man, who quite ingeniously, also appears to be self-centered and self-serving. It is the story behind the grandmother, however, that evidence appears to demonstrate the extreme differences between her superficial self and the true character of her persona; as the story unfolds, and proof of my thought process becomes apparently clear.
In "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor represents her style of writing very accurately. She includes her "themes and methods - comedy, violence, theological concern - and thus makes them quickly and unmistakably available" (Asals 177). In the beginning of the story O'Connor represents the theme of comedy by describing the typical grandmother. Then O'Connor moves on to include the violent aspect by bringing the Misfit into the story. At the end of the story the theme changes to theological concern as the attention is directed towards the grandmother's witnessing. As the themes change throughout the story, the reader's perception of the grandmother also changes.
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.
A brilliant storyteller during the mid-twentieth century, Flannery O'Connor wrote intriguing tales of morality, ethics and religion. A Southern writer, she wrote in the Southern Gothic style, cataloging thirty-two short stories; the most well known being “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”
Although this story is told in the third person, the reader’s eyes are strictly controlled by the meddling, ever-involved grandmother. She is never given a name; she is just a generic grandmother; she could belong to anyone. O’Connor portrays her as simply annoying, a thorn in her son’s side. As the little girl June Star rudely puts it, “She has to go everywhere we go. She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day” (117-118). As June Star demonstrates, the family treats the grandmother with great reproach. Even as she is driving them all crazy with her constant comments and old-fashioned attitude, the reader is made to feel sorry for her. It is this constant stream of confliction that keeps the story boiling, and eventually overflows into the shocking conclusion. Of course the grandmother meant no harm, but who can help but to blame her? O’Connor puts her readers into a fit of rage as “the horrible thought” comes to the grandmother, “that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (125).
When you do not live up to your full potential some people will say that is a waste of talent. Even if someone were to go down the wrong road there is still a chance to redeem yourself. Flannery O 'Connor the author of “A good man is hard to find” is a great example of that situation. When a family of six a grandmother, her son Bailey, the mother of his three children John Wesley, June star and a baby boy. After the family decides to have a road trip to Florida, they encounter a man known as the misfit. The misfit has been through so much trouble that the grandmother sees the lost potential in the man. The grandmother shows her indifference for creation by selfishly manipulating and nagging to get her way on the family 's vacation (Keil).
In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor shows the dynamics of a 1950’s family, hypocrisy and finally grace. In the story, the family is taking a vacation by driving to Florida. The grandmother, who is one of the central characters, convinces her son to take a side trip to visit an old plantation that she had seen in her youth. Only she misremembered about the plantation and it wasn’t there at all. On the way, the family has an accident and their car ends up in a ditch. This is where the family meets The Misfit. This story is a Southern Gothic, that has damaged characters who meet a violent end.
Bandy, Stephen C. "One of my babies": The Misfit and the Grandmother in Flannery O'Connor's short story 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find'. Studies in Short Fiction; Winter 1996, v33, n1, p107(11)
Flannery O’ Connor’s story: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is the tale of a vacation gone wrong. The tone of this story is set to be one irony. The story is filled with grotesque but meaningful irony. I this analysis I will guide you through the clues provided by the author, which in the end climax to the following lesson: “A Good Man” is not shown good by outward appearance, language, thinking, but by a life full of “good” actions.
Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is about the misfortunes a family experiences while embarking on a vacation, but it goes further to depict the divergence between the superficial conflict in everyday life and the true battles in life threatening situations. O’Connor’s use of tone, syntax, and diction helps to develop the characters and illustrate the struggle of good versus evil, shedding light on the harsh reality of the prevalence and depth of real evil.
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.
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.
In” A Good Man is Hard to Find” there are many factors that can be the theme. The theme can be about a family as a whole that lacks love for the grandmother, or about a family that goes on a trip that wound up having an accident, which puts them at the wrong place at the wrong time. Both of these themes are obvious to any reader, but it does not quite seem to match this author’s depth style way of writing. In a brief write up on Flannery O’Connor, it says “O’Connor is a moralist, she focuses an uncompromising moral eye on the violence and spiritual disorder of the world.” By knowing this about the author O’Connor we can look deeper into this story and find morals of two characters as the theme. The two characters are the Grandmother and the Misfit. Even though they are both different as night and day, they both have morals and stands by their morals no matter what.
In Flannery O’Conner’s, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the story begins with the family going on a road trip to Florida. The Grandmother who is very critical, selfish, judgmental, forgetful, and dishonest and almost enjoys manipulating others to get her way. The Grandmother holds herself in very high regard and
Flannery O’Connor’s religious background influenced almost all her stories. She received criticism for her harsh representation of religion. Richard Giannone describes “A Good Man is Hard to Find” as “God’s transforming love by confronting the reader with a condition of true goodness amid the stark brutality of serial murder” (46). In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor frequently references religious symbols to describe the characters and their actions. Toward the end of the play the grandmother frantically tries to persuade The Misfit to pray and that Jesus would help him. The Misfit replied stating, “Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead, and he shouldn’t have done it. He thown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do ...