A Good Man Is Hard To Find Summary

In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, a family plans a vacation to Florida, in which it does not turn out as they had expected. The story begins with a family from Georgia consisting of the father Bailey, his wife, baby, two kids John Wesley and June Star, and their grandmother whose name is never announced. Among planning their trip to Florida, the Grandmother suggest they go elsewhere, justifying herself saying that there is a misfit on the loose and he’s heading that direction. The rest of the family does not take her suggestion seriously, and so the next day they all leave for Florida, including the grandmother. The grandmother makes the decision to bring her cat along for the trip as well while not telling any of the other family. During the trip, the grandmother tells the children stories and plays games with
While waiting for help to come along, the first car to arrive happens to be The Misfit and his two partners. Now in the hands of a killer the family has no chance of getting away. The Misfit orders his two partners to take Bailey and John Wesley into the woods to be killed, the rest of the family will be next. The grandmother lies on the ground in shock trying to convince The Misfit that he is a good man and would never shoot a woman. The Misfit starts to explain his life and why he does not pray as the grandmother insisted him to. The grandmother then finds a moment of sympathy in which she reaches out and calls him one of her own children. The Misfit responds by shooting the grandmother in the chest multiple times. The story comes to an end after The Misfit states “She would have been a good woman…If it had been someone there to shoot her every minute of her life”. The two main characters in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the grandmother and The Misfit share many differences although they become shockingly