In A good man is hard to find, the grandmother had a complicated set of moral codes that did not compel with the natural moral codes that a catholic would be known to have. The catholic values are set to be the most reliable and trustworthy person one can be. Unfortunately the grandmother's intention…
“A good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O'Conner depicts a southern family, who is at odds about where they should go for a family vacation. They will eventually agree to head for Florida, once in the car the family will go through a series of events that will shapen each indivudal character. One of the main characters in the story, “The Grandmother”, who is known for her critical , savvy ways gives the audience her definition of what exactly it means to be a lady. The Grandmother and her family will be put to death by an escaped criminal by the name of the Misfit, who the grandmother warns the family of before there voyage to Florida. In the story one will see that although the Grandmother had not been a known convicted felon, like the Misfit, her way for thinking and immoral behavior was no different than that of the Misfit and that they were alike in many different ways. Although the Grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to find”, tries to portray herself has a good role model and a Christian lady one will later see as story evolve that she was a woman contrary of her word and was indeed the ultimate “misfit”.…
The tragic heroes and narcissists in the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor are the Grandmother and the Misfit. However, the focus is on the Grandmother and how she is in the grandiosity phase of being a tragic hero. There are personality characteristics associated with this phase, some of which the Grandmother has. She feels entitlement to get and do what she wants. In the story she takes her pet cat with her on the trip even though Bailey tells her not to. The Grandmother is a judgmental person. She judges other people based on petty things like clothes or first impressions. Finally, the Grandmother’s omniscience personality gets her killed.…
The story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is centered around the grandmother who is very self centered. When the family stops for lunch at a diner…
Flannery O’Conner short story “A Good Man is hard to Find” Is about this grandmother who is plotting to get her own way through whatever means is necessary. So the fact is “The grandmother’s whole personality is built upon the fictions she tells herself and her family” (Schenck, 340). “She creates the stories behind the visual phenomena she sees and explains the relationships between events or her own actions which have no logic other than that which she lends them” (Schenck, 340). The grandmother who imaged a life she once had that turn to a tragedy of reality for her and her family. She does not admit it, but her thoughts manifest themselves physically and emotionally. The grandmother got so embarrassed that her cheek was red and her eyes widen and she begins to stomp her feet and this really upset her at that moment.…
The grandmother frequently passed judgement on to others throughout the story, especially towards the misfit. She judges the lack of goodness in the world and says racist comments but believes she is a “lady”. During the story the grandmother was dishonest to her family about the secret panel and does not tell them how she mistook the location ultimately leading them to their death. When the grandmother’s family is taken away to be murdered she doesn’t beg him to spare them but pleads for her own life. The grandmother repeated, “You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?”…
After reading Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" for the first time, I was left with one question that perplexed me, why did the Grandmother call the Misfit one of her own children? It's a question that many believe they have the answer to, they research and analyze coming up with theories and ideas. Like many others I will now be putting my theory on the Grandmother's final words, what they meant and why she said them. Opinions on her final word vary, with authors like Brandy saying the Grandmother's final act as a selfish attempt to save her own skin. I however begun to see the Grandmother's sudden compassion for the Misfit not as an act of selfishness but an act of mercy brought upon by a form of grace, drawn O'Connor on faith.…
A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor is a short story that depicts a family road trip to Florida that ends in an abysmal tragedy when they meet the Misfit, a remorseless convict who has escaped from prison. In the beginning, the Grandmother is obsessed with everything worldly and superficial. She is completely focused on herself in relation to how others think of her. Towards the end of the story, the grandmother finds herself in ominous dialogue with The Misfit. In the story, The Misfit represents a quasi-final judgment. He does this by acting like a mirror. He lets whatever The Grandmother says bounce right off him. He never agrees nor disagrees with the grandmother, and in the end, he is the one who kills her. At the end of the story, before the Grandmother meets her fate, she has a moment of redemption. She finally distinguishes The Misfit for who he really is, not a psychopathic killer on the loose; but a person just like herself. The Misfit, being a man who is not created from social class; he is a simple human being just like the grandmother. At this point she sees herself in relation to everyone else. She finally realizes that she is not made by her class. Society makes the class, and she just fits into it. She shows this by claiming that The Misfit could be one of her own children. This story is meant to be interpreted as a parable, whereby O'Connor made skilful use of symbolism to bring about messages such as the social-superiority and the lack of spiritual faith that exist amongst common people; and the grace in humans is exposed, only when facing adverse and fatal circumstances.…
Through use of superiority and racist attitudes, the grandmother keeps the idea of the “Old South” alive. The setting of the story gives visual to those ideas through old buildings and style of roads. Together, these aspects of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” show the differences between the US now and the US of the 1950’s. Without the social prejudices of that time period, the story would lack the importance of the grandmother’s character which is to teach readers to be a more progressive…
In the story the author deal with the idea of “good” in different ways trying to show that only, because of being a “good man” doesn’t mean to be “moral” person. She represents most of these ideas by the character of the grandmother, who had, with the Misfit, a big role in the story becoming the two of them the major characters of the story. The grandmother represents a woman that thinks she is morally higher, she never thinks she can be wrong doesn’t seeing her hypocrisy and selfishness, until the point that she lies to her family about the location of a place, or lying to a children about a panel. For the grandmother a person that is a “good man” is that one that has the same thoughts as her, for example for the grandmother the Misfit a “good man” because she thinks that man couldn’t shoot a lady. The role of the lady is important because it appears since the beginning to the end of the story, just in the first pages of the story when the author shows what the grandmother wears for the journey: “…, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her 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. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at one that she was a lady.”…
O’Connor paints her own picture of what the grandmother believes to be a “good man.” The grandmother seems to treat goodness mostly as a function of being decent, having good manners, and coming from a family of "the right people." At the beginning of the story the grandmother discusses a story of her past love explaining how he was the most upright gentleman she met, claiming he too was a “good man.” She stated “he was a very good- looking man and a gentleman and that he brought her watermelon every Sunday afternoon with his initials cut in it, E.A.T.” (O’Connor 98). The grandmother was unique in the way she described…
Throughout, the story we see the grandmother being manipulative, deceitful, and selfish. Aruther Breatha, the author of the article “O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find” even compares the grandmother morally and philosophically to the serial-killing Misfit (Breatha 246). The grandmother is seen being manipulative when she is trying to change her son Baily’s mind about going to Florida, so she can go to Tennessee. She is described as “seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind” (O’Connor 364). She even tries to make Baily feel bad about taking his children in the direction where a criminal is a loose (O’ Connor 364). She has no care, for what the family as a whole want to do, and is only concerned, with what she wants to do, and where she wants to go on vacation. When all her attempts to stop the family from going to Florida fail, she starts to become deceitful. The first of her deceitful action is bring the cat along even though Baily said not to so, then when the family is on the road the grandmother want to stop at an old plantation she used to visit as a child. Baily does not want to stop so she lies and tell the children that “There was a secret panel in this house” (O’Connor 368), and that it was filled with silver. This of course drives the children to bug, Baily, and the grandmother get what she wants. Once, the family turns down…
The grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” exemplifies what it means to be a fake. She is a liar, racist, and judger. All of these attributes go against the beliefs of the Catholic Church, but the grandmother does not have the self-awareness to notice. Her racist remarks are most clearly shown during the drive when the…
In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, O’Connor seems to suggest that only through conflicts can the “good” in people be found. The way that the grandmother seems to dwell in the past suggests that she believes that it would’ve been easier to find a “good” man a long time ago. To the grandmother, trying to find goodness today would prove to be very challenging and possibly even useless. Through the use of symbolism, foreshadowing, and metaphors, O’Connor develops the story’s theme.…
There is no one on Earth who could replace a child’s mother. Whether biological or not, whoever nurtures and shows love to a child while growing up deserves the title of a mother. As this child grows older, they may develop their own thoughts, opinions, and morals. They may disagree with their mother figure, even though they only want what is best for them. However, the mother could be wrong. They are not perfect. In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” this mother figure could be seen as the Grandmother. Her and her son clearly disagree on many things, such as where to go for a vacation (that she is originally not part of). In “The Glass Menagerie,” a play written by Tennessee Williams, Amanda, a mother of two grown children, is also in constant disagreement with her children. Both works of literature end rather tragically, all because of a mother’s love for her children. Although Amanda and the Grandmother may have…