A Good Man Is Hard To Find Foreshadowing Analysis

"A Good Man Is Hard To Find" Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" is filled with many key literacy elements such as point of view, structure, setting, foreshadowing, and themes. This story is told in an omniscient point of view and part objective. O'Connor allows the story to develop by itself without getting fully into the minds of one of the characters but there is a narrator. The dialogue and actions of the characters are what make up the story. I think by telling this story through these points of views readers get a better feeling of the mood in the story. There are a lot of character's reactions that would be missed if O'Connor just allowed the readers to get into the mind of only one character. O'Connor did even mention
actual names for some of her major characters such as the ‘The Grandma' and mother of the kids. The structure of the story was very simple. The events went from the beginning of the conflict to the end with out any interruptions such as flashbacks. This story flows from the minute the story starts straight to the conclusion of the story. The story follows the Freytag's Pyramid exactly. From the rising action to the initial conflict O'Connor provides the readers with all the setup for the story. Before the crisis happens the readers could feel the tension between the characters and get a sense that something was about to happen. After the family ran into The Misfit then the story began to slowly lead to the denouement which ended up being the death of all the family members. O'Connor provides the reader with very realistic details. With these details the readers are introduced to the time and place of the story. The author provides the exact time the family left their house in Atlanta, and even tells what the speedometer reads as they drove along the highway. The exact year isn't mentioned in the story but you get a feel that the story takes place in the 1950's by the way the grandma talks. For example, by the way the grandma talks about the "Negro child" and the dirt roads. Also, she supplies many specific geographical references to help readers get the feel of the place of the story. The setting and atmosphere give readers the main feel for the story. Through out the story O'Connor describes the setting. The reader begins to feel like they are driving in the car along with the family. These descriptions helps bring the readers into the story. For an example O'Connor tells what scenery the grandmother sees as they travel through Georgia. By all the descriptions O'Connor provides readers began to understand the atmosphere or mood of the story. By O'Connor describing the story with much detail the story begins to have a sense of reality. Everyone in some time of their life can relate to being on a road trip with family members and looking out at the scenery that they passed by. The one time that the story kind of departs from reality is when The Misfit took time and talked to the family. Most killers don't hold a long conversation with the people they are about to kill. O'Connor uses a lot foreshadowing and symbolism in her story.
One of the first foreshadows is when the grandmother didn't want to leave the cat alone in the house. She said the cat would miss her to much. This foreshadows to the death of the grandmother. One of the other foreshadowing's to the death of the grandmother is when the grandmother points out the graveyard that had five or six graves fenced in. Not only do the graves symbolizes death, the amount of graves there are also match the amount of family members in the car that ended up dying. Another foreshadowing to the grandmothers death is how and why she is so dressed up for the trip. Unlike the mother of the kids the grandmother was dressed in her Sundays best. The grandmother says that she is dressed nicely "in case of an accident anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know she was a lady" (O‘Connor 309). Another thing that I think is significant in the story is the type car the Misfit drove up to the family in. It was described as "a big black battered hearse-like automobile" (O‘Connor 314). After reading the outcome of the story you recognize how the car relates. This car represents the coming of their death. O'Connor also hints the upcoming deaths by the name of the town the family was in when the Grandma happened to recall this old memory of the house. The name of the town was Toombsboro and when analyzed, the word "tomb" pulled out of the town's name, foreshadows how the family will meet their
end. Guilty and Innocent. Good and Bad. These are a few themes that O'Connor presents in "A Goodman Is Hard To Find." The grandmother was always so proper, had strong virtues and values; a "good" woman in her view. But really she was a self- centered person who judged others harshly, so that she would look good. She felt that the Misfit was a "bad" person who did terrible things and was going to suffer because of the decisions he had made in his life. But the "good" grandma was actually the "bad" one in the end. The grandma was also guilty and innocent for the cause of the family's death. It was the Misfit who obviously killed the family but if they grandma never made the family go down the dirt road they would have never ran into that problem. Flannery O'Connor did an amazing job of keeping the readers on their toes. Readers were drawn into the story the minute they began reading it. She really developed her story well using the many of the key literacy elements such as: point of view, structure, setting, foreshadowing, and themes.