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Examples Of The Grandmother In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” written by Flannery O’Connor is a short story about a family who is taking a trip to Florida and is killed by the Misfit and his crew after an accident. As the short story begins, the grandmother is seen by the reader as the hero/protagonist but as the story progresses, the grandmother shows he true colors and is seen as the monster/antagonist. The grandmother is a manipulative, dishonest and selfish person who leads herself and her family to their death. This is a woman who is willing to use manipulation to get what she wants, shows her self-interest and her little concern for anyone else but herself throughout the short story. The grandmother is the cause of the accident that lead to …show more content…

This is the lie that lead her and her family to their inevitable demise. If the grandmother had told the truth, they would have continued on their way to Florida instead of encountering the Misfit and his crew. The grandmother had a horrible thought come to her head and was too embarrassed to say anything right before the accident. The narrator later explains, “The horrible thought she had had before the accident was that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (O’Connor 125). The grandmother, who puts herself before anyone else, should have said something when she realized the plantation was in Tennessee and the family could have turned around. Rather she did not want to feel like a halfwit to her family so she kept it to herself. Had the grandmother told her son she was mistaken instead of having an embarrassing moment and keeping it to herself, the accident could have been avoided all together. Selfishness is another negative characteristic of the grandmother, along with being self-centered. On page 118 the grandmother was all dressed up so, “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O’Connor 118). This is the first time readers see her conceited quality. She wants to make sure everyone knows that she was a first-class citizen and lady. This ironically happens

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