Manipulation In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

She intentionally lies about the house having a secret panel just to get the kids interest so that Bailey would be more likely to stop and visit. The grandmother is also portrayed as being very loud and outgoing. When the family stops at the restaurant, she carries on a conversation with a complete stranger. She also wants to get up and dance.

In 1953, Flannery O'Connor published her famous short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” In this story, a family of four members is the Grandmother, Bailey, the children's mother, John Wesley, June Star and the baby. The family is on their way for the vacation after the Grandmother complaints about going to Tennessee instead of Florida; the Grandmother mistakenly brings the family to a dirt road by lying about a secret panel house (the house is actually in Tennessee, not Georgia). A car accident happens, unfortunately, they get help from the Misfit and are shot by the Misfit.

The grandmother is the central character in the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor. She is also a very well rounded and dynamic character. She shows various characteristics and reveals various remarks as they story progresses. Some of her qualities include selfish and a pushy person. She is also kind of manipulator in a way that she insists her family to change the plan. At the beginning of the story when we first realize her desire to visit her childhood house, she is being a very selfish person. Examining her conversation with her son Bailey, the grandmother is moreover a pushy person. She is convincing Bailey to change the trip plan according to her need only and which will

O'Connor does the same thing here; the grandmother's first action was to convince her son, Bailey, into going were she wanted to go, a selfish act, not a trait that we see a grandmother having. Also she thought out a plan to get what she wanted by acting as if she cared about her family's safety. "Now looks here, Bailey........ see here, read this...Here this fellow that calls himself the Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed towards Florida and you read here what is says he did to these people(328)." The grandmother's relationship right away to the reader is one that can not be trusted. Throughout the story you now question the grandmother's intentions, are they honest or selfish.

Influential women get what they want Motives are often selfish or selfless, driven by love for someone or something, or propelled by egocentric wants. In Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, Psycho, Marion Crane steals from her boss’s friend and runs away by herself with the money. The grandmother in Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” ignores her family’s opinions about their vacation and keeps her own ideas central to her actions. Both characters disregard the feelings of their loved ones and use manipulation in order to get what they want.

The grandmother was being manipulative as any other person would to get what they want. Manipulation is when a person influence skillfully in a unfair manner. I’m a manipulative

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor was published in 1953. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” to me, explored how some people in the 20th century behaved. The main character, The Grandmother, was a very egotistical, all she cared about was herself. Those type of people, even nowadays, are extremely easy to come by. Even though there were more characters, the grandmother showed Southern Gothic features the most, she was a misfit of her own.

Through her selfish acts, she influences those around her, but in a very subtle way. An example of this is when she tries to change the family’s vacation plans to fit her own needs. Manipulation occurs when she convinces the children to beg Bailey to go down a gravel road to find

The first sentence in the story reveals to us that the grandmother is the main character in the story, and that she doesn’t want to go to Florida, which suggests something bad is going to happen if she does go to Florida. The author’s intent in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is to show, as the title suggests, that a good man is hard to find.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a short story in which Flannery O’Connor, the author, presents a tale of good, evil, and divine grace. The grandmother, who is considered to be the main character, tries to convince the family to go to Tennessee after reading an article about someone who called himself ‘The Misfit.’ The family wants to go to Florida, but the grandmother tells the family she wants to avoid a run in with The Misfit. After their stop in Georgia for food, they find out that she was not wrong. The short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is about a grandmother who is manipulative until her very last breath.

This lady is quite self-centered, manipulative, and proud; she is constantly persuading her family to make them do what she wants. For example, after the Grandmother has convinced them to take the dirt road, and she realizes that the house they are looking for is not in Georgia, but in Tennessee, the Grandmother stays silent to avoid the embarrassment. However, the most distinctive aspect of the Grandmother’s personality is her sense of Utopia. She is constantly recoiling better times which she associates with the Old South of Gone with the Wind, “when there were no paved roads” (135), and more importantly, when good men were easy to find. There also traces of what Lipset calls morality plays in the Grandmother; at the beginning of the story, the Grandmother does not want to go to Florida because she “wouldn’t take [her] children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it.

O'Connor's typical use of violence and humor in her literary work broadens the characterization of the grandmother and the misfit throughout her story. She uses these elements in an effort to establish the characterization of her two main characters through the many

Our protagonist “The Grandmother” finds herself wanting to visit her old friends in her hometown. The Grandmother even goes to the extent of trying to use an escaped convict “The Misfit” our antagonist, as an excuse to not go to 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 these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it.

In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the hypocrisy and selfishness of the grandmother brings about all of the conflict in the story. As John Desmond notes in his essay “Flannery O’Connor’s Misfit and the Mystery of Evil,” “her [the grandmother’s] lying and selfishness lead directly to the accident and the subsequent murder of her family” (133). The grandmother deceitfully coaxes her son Bailey and his family into going to Tennessee because she wants to, even though no one else in the family has any desire to go there. The grandmother

She tells her son to take a detour to view an old plantation she grew up on, the children would enjoy it. “She said the house had six white columns across the front and that there was an avenue of oaks leading up to it and two little wooden trellis arbors on either side in front where you sat down with your suitor after a stroll in the garden.” (O’Connor, 1983) Bailey gives in to his grandmothers manipulation once again as the grandmother convinces the children to join her. "