A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a traumatic short story about a family, that is taking a trip to Florida, but never makes it because of their run in with the outlaw the Misfit, who in the end kills the whole family. Throughout, the story O’Connor shows what a good man is through the Characterization of the Misfit, the grandmother, and Bailey. The Misfit, is the criminal of the story, some people think that the Misfit, is only a killer, and has no morals, or thoughts of his own, but thought careful observation, we can see that the misfit is actually a man of morals, a good man, and a critical thinker. According to Gary Sloan the author of the article "O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find." He says that “…critics describe
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’s ideas about a good man are that they behave as a gentleman, this is shown by how much she worries whether she acting like a proper lady or not. That the man should have superior blood, and not common blood. The grandmother states over, and over again that the misfits is a good man because he “…don’t look a bit like you have common blood” (O’Connor 370). She thinks that bloodlines make you a good person, as many people in the south used to. Then at the end of the story when the grandmother, shows that she can identify what a good man is, after the Misfit dawned on her son Baily’s shirt she finally seen that he Misfits was one of her children. She identified the Misfit with Baily. She seen him, as Baily. Nancy Nester, the author of the critical analysis “O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find” explains that the grandmother recognized her son’s clothing and realized the goodness to be found in the quotidian, the commonplace. That the good man was one of her babies, one of her children. The good man was Baily (Nester