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Literary analysis of " A Good Man is Hard To Find
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In the three stories, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “A Worn Path,” all three women have a petulant nature of some kind and yet still are able to find grace. Only one of these women, Phoenix Jackson, from “A Worn Path,” possesses true grace before her death. Both Granny and the Grandmother are in their final moments when the reader believes that they have been given a chance at accepting grace, and even then it is not cut and dry in Granny's case.
In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” the grandmother, alluded to as “Granny” within the story, is nothing short of an honorary elderly woman. She is petulant towards the doctor, behaving like an irritated child, who comes to speak to her and check on her failing health. Granny denies her ill health vehemently, informing the doctor not to let “Cornelia lead you on...go and doctor your sick!” while her daughter informs the good doctor of the truth of the matter.
Kelly, Joseph, and Katherine Anne Porter. "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall." The Seagull Reader. Second ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. 419. Print.
Granny Weatherall is much like the Grandmother in “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” by Flannery O’Connor. Both women, the Granny and the Grandmother, are contemptuous towards their children, as shown by Granny with her shouting and dismissing of her daughter, Cornelia, and her fears. The Grandmother, however, is not just contemptuous of her son, Bailey, but is secretly defiant of him as well.
All three women in each story have some sort of high opinion of themselves. They are ladies, not necessarily high-born or rich, though there are a few hints that Grandmother had money due to her deep southern ties, but they have an inept since of stubbor...
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...ry O'Connor. "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." The Seagull Reader. Second ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. 373. Print.
Kelly, Joseph, and Katherine Anne Porter. "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall." The Seagull Reader. Second ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. 419. Print.
The Grandmother is a different sort of arrogant woman. It is come to be thought that the Grandmother had grown up in money, speaking of old southern plantations that she had visited in her youth, and a rich young man who invested well in coca-cola stock. She wears an elaborate outfit, what one would consider church clothes, on a simple vacation to Florida in case there was a car wreck and she wanted to be identified by anyone, dead, as being “at once...a lady.”
Kelly, Joseph, and Flannery O'Connor. "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." The Seagull Reader. Second ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. 374. Print.
The Grandmother is a bit of a traditionalist, and like a few of O’Connor’s characters is still living in “the old days” with outdated morals and beliefs, she truly believes the way she thinks and the things she says and does is the right and only way, when in reality that was not the case. She tends to make herself believe she is doing the right thing and being a good person when in actuality it can be quite the opposite. David Allen Cook says in hi...
The family doctor, their priest, and the Weatherall family all gather around Granny Weatherall on her death bed, but for the majority of this time, she does not realize that she is dying, and believes that they are all making a fuss over nothing. Granny Weatherall is very annoyed by the attention, and almost always has a catty remark to her family’s concern, such as when she says to her doctor, “You look like a saint, Doctor Harry, and I vow that’s as near as you’ll ever come to it”(Porter, 265). While Granny Weatherall had a family that was very attentive to her, it seems as though the grandmother from “A Good Man is Hard to Find” had a family that was mainly annoyed by her presence. Not much is known about the grandmother’s past, but is seems as though her son tries not to be annoyed by her, but just cannot stop himself, and it is very clear that her grandchildren are very annoyed by her. She is found annoying by her family,
In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter, we learn of an elderly woman who is lying on her death bed watching her life pass before her eyes. We learn, from these flashbacks, how much she has overcome and endured, and how she's put her whole heart into being a mother and wife up until her last breath, when she blew out the candle and rode with her Father in a cart to heaven. It’s this very reason why Porter, in my opinion, chose Granny as the narrator of this story; so we could see the story through her eyes, being able to relate and appreciate it better.
Katherine Porter's The Jilting Of Granny Weatherall and A Clean, Well-Lighted Place written by Ernest Hemmingway
Porter, Katherine Anne. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Fort Worth: Harcourt, 2000.
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.
To begin, Granny Weatherall is inherently a prideful controlfreak. Granny Weatherall is at her deathbed, facing everything she has staved off for so long. This and all other adversity she faces throughout the short story map out her true personality. For instance, she is full of pride. When that pride takes a hit, as it does several times throughout the short story she metaphorically hits back at whoever or whatever
In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” O’Connor introduces the reader to a family who represents the juxtaposition between old and new Southern culture. The grandmother, in particular, represents the old South because she focuses on her appearance, manners, and other attributes that are considered the stereotypical image of femininity. She is a self proclaimed lady whose “collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace” and “at her neckline, she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet” (405-406). In fact, she yearned to dress ideally so that “in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead...
O’Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” The Story and Its Writer. Charters, Ann. Compact 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/ST. Martin's, 2011. 676-687. Print.
In the short story A Good Man Is Hard to Find, written by Flannery O’Connor, the theme that the definition of a ‘good man’ is mysterious and flawed is apparent. The reader must realize that it is difficult to universalize the definition of a good man because every person goes through different experiences. Thus, these experiences affect his or her viewpoint and in turn flaw ones view on a good man. O’Connor conveys this theme through her excellent use of diction, imagery, foreshadowing, and symbolism as well as through a creative use of repetition and an omniscient point of view.
This is based on the grounds that “the Misfit”, an escaped criminal, is on the loose somewhere in Florida. The ironic part of this is that the grandmother is the only family member to conceive of bad things happening to the family. She bases this solely on the fact that they were traveling in the same direction as the Misfit. This negative thinking quite possibly could have led to the eventual rendezvous between the convict and the family. The following day, the family heads off to Florida.
Porter, Katherine Anne. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Literature Portfolio. Eds. Desmet, Christy, D. Alexis Hart, and Deborah Church Miller. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 204-211. Print.
O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." The Story and Its Writer An Introduction to Short Fiction. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin's, 2011. 1042-053. Print.
Events from the past can always change the way your life in smalls ways, but effectively alter your future. In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” the main character, Ellen “Granny” Weatherall, is introduced in a state where she has bitter personality. This proves to be crafted intentionally by the author as the story progresses. In all, she truly was a worrisome woman. Throughout “Granny” Weatherall’s life the author had used symbolism to show a development in her character through various life events, along with a stream of consciousness which allows the reader to experience Granny’s life through her eyes.
Katherine Anne Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall", tells the story of sick Granny Weatherall in her last days. Granny Weatherall lies in bed as her doctor and her daughter Cornelia visit her. As the story continues Father Connolly, expected to give her the last wishes, and Weatherall’s other children continue to arrive. Granny Weatherall hates feeling worthless, she still feels as if everyone needs her for his or her problems. She feels that life is like an unmade bed and she is the only one that can fix it. She is also seen as being very pessimistic having prepared for her death several times before. “She had spent so much time preparing for death there was no need for bringing it up