The Zodiac Killer And The Misfit

In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor uses grotesque and flawed characters to reflect her own faith on the Roman Catholic Church. Set in the rural South during the 1950s, O’Connor takes readers on a journey from a satiric family comedy to a brutal cold blooded murder. An analysis of O’Connor’s use of religious symbolism and foreshadowing through characters and setting will be conducted in order to better understand her views and faith of the Catholic Church. This paper will also argue the belief that religious wisdom is the key for moral guidance.

Flannery O’Connor was known for her strong religious background, Catholicism, and used her faith as the underlying message in her works. In the story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” there are a couple of things that can be traced directly to Christianity. The little boy, John Wesley, symbolizes the religious denomination of Methodism. John Wesley, along with his brother Charles Wesley, founded the

O’connor is from the south and is catholic. The grandmother in the story is a big believer in god, and talks about him a lot throughout. John Desmond says how the title reminds him of a story in the Bible when Christ rebukes Peter when he tried to call him “good”, and Jesus says that no one should be called good, and how in the story the grandmother continues to call the misfit “good” (Desmond). “Nome, I ain’t a good man”(191) He knew he wasn’t the worst in the world, but he knew he wasn’t good. I feel like the misfit wasn’t a good man. He brutally murdered this entire family for no reason, other than that they recognized him as the escapee.

Should The Misfit be perceived as an evil, psychotic hoodlum as portrayed in the story, or does he save us from hearing any more religious rhetoric from the grandmother? “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” repeatedly preaches morality while giving readers the illusion that the Misfit is possibly a dark angel, in fact, the Misfit simply kills the family in order to prevent the family from giving away his route of escape. Ultimately, the act of saving one’s own life by killing cannot be judged as being wrong, the Misfit saves himself along with his supposed criminal counterparts, Bobby Lee and Hiram. The story provides no evidence or background on what crimes the Misfit and his gang have committed, therefore, the reader must

The Zodiac Killer was an infamous murderer who terrorized Northern California in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. He killed with zero remorse and even stated in one of his letters that “I like killing people because it’s so much fun” (“Zodiac Killer”). Between December 1968 and October 1969 had killed a total of five people and severely injured two others. He made his first appearance on December 20, 1968, when he shot and killed 17-year-old David Faraday and his 16-year-old girlfriend Betty Lou Jensen. The police were unable to determine the motive for the crime or a suspect. However, on August 1, 1969, the zodiac sent letters to the San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, and Vallejo Times Herald. Each letter started the same “Dear Editor:

What, declares a person to be good or bad? Who is the judge to pinpoint someone in such manner? Humanity is destined to be flawed and is capable of both actions. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” A masterpiece written by Flannery O’Connor gives insight of the protagonist and antagonist in the sense of good vs. evil. The protagonist, an old-fashioned conniving manipulator takes on the role of playing the judge basing the sense of goodness in her own superficial ways. The story has a foundation of family, the influence of manipulation, and good vs. evil. The grandmother, who considers herself to be a genuine good Christian individual, leads the entire family to their demise due to her selfish and manipulating demeanor.

The late 1960’s and early 1970’s were a time of great change in America. The Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the sexual revolution were just some of the issues on the evening news in American households. For citizens of the San Francisco Bay area, as well as the rest of California, the late 60’s early 70’represented terror, fear and death. “The bizarre and theatrical and still unresolved serial murders by real-life ghoul who called himself Zodiac, who claimed in letters to have killed 37 people (though police have focused on five homicides and two attempted murders in the greater Bay Area in 1968 and 1969” (Booth,2) have intrigued people for nearly four decades. How has Zodiac remained so elusive? What

Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Dennis Raider, and the Zodiac Killer; All of these men are real-life examples of cold blooded killers that walked free for many years. They grew up in communities, attended schools, they drove the same roads you and I do, and they may have even appeared to some as – normal. Serial killers live amongst us today, many are not suspected by their neighbors, friends, or family, until the day they make a fatal error leading to their arrest, and for some, they may never be caught. With this being said, it really makes an average person ask themselves, what is going on in a killers head? Or the even bigger question is, how did they become that way? Are these killers products of their environment (nurture), or a product of their biological make up (nature)?

In Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the grandmother and the Misfit become the main focus even though the other characters are involved in the story. Throughout the entire story, The Misfit is portrayed as the symbol of evil because he was in jail; he escaped from jail, and he committed murders. The grandmother believes to be greater than the people that she are around because of the “good” that she portrays. The conventional meaning of good, or possessing or displaying moral virtue, is not the particular good that the grandmother is trying to portray throughout the story. The grandmother believes that good

The first murders widely attributed to the Zodiac Killer were the shootings of high school students Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on December 20, 1968, on Lake Herman Road, just inside Benicia city limits. Shortly after 11:00 p.m. their bodies were found. Robert Graysmith postulated that another car pulled into the turnout, just prior to 11:00 pm and parked beside the couple. Jensen appeared to have exited the car first, yet when Faraday was halfway out, the killer apparently shot Faraday in the head. Fleeing from the killer, Jensen was gunned down twenty-eight feet from the car with five shots through her back. The killer then drove off.

In the late sixties and early seventies, California was haunted by dozens of unsolved murders. The offender remains unknown to this day. The murderer, who referred to himself as "the Zodiac," made contact with the police and area newspapers throughout his reign of terror through a series of menacing notes. Although the police were never able to apprehend Zodiac, they were able to gather information about him via the letters. Zodiac boasted of killing up to forty victims, however, police estimated he may have killed over 50.

One way Flannery O’Connor uses biblical references in her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is by characterizing The Misfit to seem like a couple of different major

   Good and bad. Right and wrong. Guilty and Innocent. These are just a few of the many themes that surround everyone's life. Everyone has their own opinion about certain issues, and they depend on their values, judgment, and beliefs to see them through their difficulties. Flannery O'Connor was quoted as saying "I see from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. This means the meaning of life is centered in our Redemption by Christ and that what I see in the world I see in relation to that" (Contemporary Authors 402). These themes are present in O'Connor's story "A Good Man is Hard to Find." The story is about a grandmother, a "good" woman who goes on

The Misfit is a complex character created by Flannery O’Connor. He is talked about first when the Grandmother reads his criminal background at the breakfast table. Right when the Misfit meets the family the Grandmother starts questioning his faith and past, and through the Grandmother’s persistent behavior that you find out the truth behind the Misfits hard exterior. The reader understands that the Misfit was brought up by parents who were the “finest people in the world” (O’Connor 1312). With this type of background, how can one expect the Misfit to be such a cold blooded killer? Because of his kind nature in the beginning of the story, it’s almost impossible to understand how he could just kill. Through deeper analysis one can

According to his brother, Ronald, Allen was given a Zodiac watch as a Christmas gift from their mother in 1967. Allen believed he received the watch on July or August 1969. The logo for the Zodiac watch is a cross-circle symbol, the same symbol used by the Zodiac killer. According to police statements, within days of receiving the watch, Allen is alleged to have made these claims to his friend, Don Cheney: “I would like to kill couples at random. I would taunt the police with letters detailing my crimes. I would sign the letters with the cross-circle symbol from my watch. I would call myself "Zodiac." I would wear makeup to change my appearance. I would attach a flashlight to the barrel of my gun in order to shoot at night. I would fool women into stopping their cars in rural areas by claiming they had problems with their tires, then loosen their lug nuts and eventually take them captive.” Don eventually took this information to the police and, in 1972, the San Francisco Police Department was able to secure a search warrant against Allen as the Zodiac Killer. Allen is alleged to have been fascinated with the concept of hunting people. According to Allen, people would be more challenging to hunt than animals, since they "have intelligence."