A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” tells a twisted story of a typical family going about a road trip embedded with ethical pit stops along the way. The story revolves around a cynical grandmother and how her unconventional attitude and habits set the stage for an interesting turn of events. Through manipulative antics, a prejudice character and an ironic story line, author Flannery O’Conner creates a captivating tale that shines a lights on readers’ own moral codes. The author does this by making an example of a woman completely unaware of her own immoral acts.

To begin with, the grandmother uses his escape from prison as an influential claim made in her efforts to persuade her son to travel to Tennessee, rather than Florida for vacation. Furthermore, Red Sammy also discusses the extremity of the outlaw with his customers and implies that he “wouldn’t be none surprised to see him,” thus conveying that future events might include the dreaded appearance of notorious The Misfit.

Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, is tale about a grandmother who unknowingly steers her family to a fatal meeting with a fugitive. The chance encounter with the murderous fugitive ultimately costs the grandmother and her family their lives. Sticking with the Southern Gothic genre, O’Connor takes odd characters and mixes in dark encounters to produce a story packed full of hidden meanings and foreshadowing (Language and Literature, 2). At first glance, it seems easy to identify the character that represents evil in the story, the murderous outlaw. However, things are not always, what they seem; a closer look will reveal that the murder might not be the evilest character in the story.

The grandmother tells the children a story about an old plantation that is along the route they are travelling. However, while searching for this plantation, the grandmother realizes that the “horrible thought she had had before the accident was that the house she had remembered vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (O’Connor 12). She is too vain to admit her mistake and this caused the family to be in a horrible accident which leads to even more

“The grandma didn’t want to go to Florida” (par. 1) was the first sentence in this short story which clearly reveals grandma’s selfish ways. The bible tells us to love our neighbor as we love our self and not to bear false witness, but grandma struggles with these two sins. The author, Flannery O’Connor, noticeably demonstrates in her writing that grandma loves herself more than anyone, and will lie for her own selfish desires. Grandma intentionally brought the cat on the trip, without anyone else’s knowledge, because she thought being gone for three days would cause the cat to “miss her” (par.10). The cat is what instigated the car

As the family is getting ready to head out to their desired destination, the grandmother brings up a newspaper article about the Misfit in attempt of changing the family’s destination instead of wanting the family to be safe and happy. Her selfishness and able to manipulate others in order to achieve what she wants is demonstrated through that small part of the story. Also, she makes a great effort to look well-dressed even though her family is dressed casual. She mentions that “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.” She is dressed in her best outfit, as if she were going to meet the lord which is ironic since before the day is out she will actually meet the lord. Having a suitable and ladylike appearance mattered more to her than anything else, even her own life. Despite her personality, the grandmother has important contradictions of her character. From her references to Jesus, the bible, and praying, it appears that she thinks of herself as a Christian

In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, O’Connor tells the story mainly on the emphasis of the grandmothers prospective. The grandmother was never named in the short story, only leaving the reader to guess if this story was how O’Connor portrayed a feeling toward society and religion. In order for the reader to understand the point of view of the story, the reader must look at the back ground of the author. Born in Georgia, where the story takes place, O’Connor was raised a devout Roman Catholic in the largely Protestant South. Due to O’Connor’s Catholic religion and conservative upbringing in the protestant south it is easy to see her obvious disapproval with society and others religious values. O’Conner died at a young age from an illness, an illness that had taken her father’s life when she was just a teenager. During her short time of writing she only published two novels and a collection of stories. The title story of the collection, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” is O’Connor’s most famous. (Larson) O’Connor’s uncanny blend of wicked humor, brutal violence, and religious concepts produced the unmistakable literary voice of one of the most important short story writers of the 20th century. (183)

In Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard To Find, one is struck by the unexpected violence at the end of the story. However, if you re-read the story a second time, you will see definite signs that foreshadow the grotesque ending. The story begins with the typical nuclear family being challenged by the grandmother who doesn't want to take the vacation to Florida. She has read about a crazed killer by the name of the Misfit who is on the run heading for Florida. Unfortunately, she is ignored by every member of the family except for the little girl, June Star, who can read the grandmother like an open book. The fact that she admonishes Bailey, her son, of this Misfit

“A Good Man Is Hard To Find” and “Good Country People” are two short stories written by Flannery O’Connor during her short lived writing career. Despite the literary achievements of O’Connor’s works, she is often criticized for the grotesqueness of her characters and endings of her short stories and novels. Her writings have been described as “understated, orderly, unexperimental fiction, with a Southern backdrop and a Roman Catholic vision, in defiance, it would seem, of those restless innovators who preceded her and who came into prominence after her death”(Friedman 4). “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” and “Good Country People” are both set in the South, and O’Connor explores the tension between the old and new South. The stories are tow

In the story, Bailey sticks to the plan to go to Florida and actually told his children, “no”, about going to an old plantation home that his mother told them about. It was until they started throwing fits that he started to lose control of the situation (his life). Further, when they encounter the three men, it was his fear that made him realize that he truly has lost control of his life. The mother of his children, lost that control a long time ago while being with him as she just went along with everything and did not really oppose Bailey and his decisions. The same thing goes for the grandmother, it was not until she realized that she had made a mistake, she started to lose control.

One of Flannery O’Connor’s most well known works, “A Good Man is Hard to find” tells the story of a family from Georgia going on a trip to Florida. The story grows more intricate when it is revealed that a dangerous escaped prisoner, called The Misfit, is heading the same way as the family. Eventually, the family and The Misfit come head-to-head in an unfortunate ending that, upon further evaluation, leaves the line between right and wrong blurrier than ever. O’Connor uses two central characters, The Grandmother and The Misfit, among other supporting characters, to employ and amplify the theme of good vs. evil.

Exploring the idea that all men are born sinners, O’Connor demonstrates immoral indulgences entertained by various characters. Readers are introduced to grandmother, an elderly woman whose consistent unscrupulous behavior exhibits her inner motives. Grandmother uses subtle, indirect confrontation to get her way until she is faced with The Misfit, a runaway criminal who believes that crime is a justifiable. In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” Flannery O’Connor uses characterization to display a loss of morals, imagery to portray evil in society, and symbolism to emphasize the struggle of obtaining grace to prove how life is nihilistic without religion.

“A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’ Connor, is about a family going on a trip from Georgia to Florida. The grandmother, who is old-fashion in her beliefs, tells her grandchildren stories on the road trip; one story leads them down a dirt road to find a house on an old plantation, which produces an unpleasant outcome. The author uses the grandmother’s voice and language to give an old southern appeal to the story, which causes the impression that those who live like her are considered more acceptable.

A family that consists of a grandmother, father, mother, and three grandchildren from Atlanta plans to go to Florida for a family vacation. The grandmother is refusing to go to Florida because she has “her connection in east Tennessee” (O’Connor 38). She points out from an article that the Misfit is on the loose and is headed toward Florida and that “the children had been to Florida before” (O’Connor 38). Nevertheless, the grandmother gets up early than everyone else, and prepares for the trip. The next morning She is dressed up in her Sunday best “just in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O’Connor 38). The grandmother secretly brings along her cat because she does not want the cat to “accidentally asphyxiate himself” (O’Connor 38) if he was to be left alone. The grandmother is too particular with the trip, that she takes the mileage before they drive off and her son what speed limit to drive so that she does not want the patrolmen to ticket Bailey and ruin their vacation.

The story starts by introducing the grandmother who providing reasons on why her son should change the families vacation from Florida to Tennessee, largely due to The Misfit being on the loose. Unable to do so, the family starts their journey, and the grandmother spends much of her time reminiscing her past. Along the way, the family makes a pit stop for lunch. While there the grandmother carry’s on a conversation with Red Sammy. They share their views as well as concerns regarding the criminal. Back in the car, with the help of her grandchildren, she convinces her son, Bailey to go off path and stop at a plantation she once visited. As they are traveling down the dirt road, the grandmother realizes she was incorrect, and the plantation is elsewhere; at that same moment the cat, whom the grandmother snuck along, jumps onto the front seat, and the car crashes into a ditch and The Misfit is introduced. Through the twists and turns of the story, the story ends with the family is murdered.