A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

Struggles between classes and races have been a big problem throughout the time. It was shown in many ways, and the most prominent one is the time of Slavery. The story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, talked about a tragedy that happened because of the conflict between two different social values. This historical fiction story became more inter-esting than others because the whole story is full of ironic. The story started by different opinions about where to have a vacation, and because of the choice they made and the Grandma’s dissat-isfaction, lead to the adversity of the whole family. Nevertheless, a story named “Everything that Rises Must Converge” wrote by Flannery O’Connor, also showed to the readers that how differ-ent
Instead, she suggested going to East Tennessee to visit her relatives. In the story, she says, “I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn’t answer to my conscience if I did” (402). When Grandma was proud of her generation and how she can manipulate someone’s action by talking, readers know that her generation was full of racism, slavery and the disrespectful to dif-ferent races. Also, when the whole family is on the way to Florida, they saw a little black child standing in the door of the shack, the Grandmother says, “In my time, children were more re-spectful … look at the cute little pickaninny” (404). As the Grandma said people did right then, she saw a black child, which she later called him pickaninny. Grandma did not notice that the word she said was full of racism and favor of slavery. In these dramatic ironies, Grandma was the person who did not understand the value of life and her idea was wrong for the new genera-tions. As the previous part of the story told, Grandma was considering herself as a lady, and promoting her older generation’s idea, about how great it is back then, and everyone respects others. But when it came near the end of the story when they had a car
At the beginning of the story, when the family is going to Florida, the Grandmother wear “a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch...containing a sachet” (404). The fancy dress symbolizes not only her value to other people, which she is the only higher class and she should be supreme, but also shows that her feeling of appearance is more important than anything else. Furthermore, the old lady hide a cat in the car even though Bailey “didn’t like to arrive at a motel with a cat” (403). Later in the story, because of the cat, the family was in an accident, and lead to the tragedy of the family. And the reason for her to hide the car in the car is “She didn’t intend for the cat to be left alone” (403). Which symbolized her careless to the family where she always wants to be su-preme. Also, back at the time where the story was published, cat was a symbol of rich people or higher class. She rather brings a symbolism of high class, knowing her son does not agree with that, than not bringing it into the car to simply avoid any accident