A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

“He turned his back and faced the sunset. He swung both his whole and his short arm up slowly so that they indicated an expanse of sky and his figure formed a crooked cross” (O’Connor 1). This quote is from The Life You Save May Be Your Own, and shows how society knows God is existent, but still sins. The man in the quote, is Mr. Shiftlet, a man who commits horrible acts. He knows God is real and acknowledges him, yet still carries out heinous deeds. O’Connor includes this to show how society has often struggled with the concept of the afterlife, living “by the rules” in order to go to heaven and evade eternal pain. In her other stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Revelation. O’Connor throws this idea under the bus and includes dark characters who receive God’s grace, despite the horrible things they’ve done. She does this to show the reader modern Christian theology, and cause the reader to have an epiphany, just as her characters do. Throughout all of her
A Good Man is Hard to Find is about a family and their grandmother, who take a vacation, planned originally for Florida, but changed to Tennessee at the last second because the Grandmother doesn’t want to encounter an escaped convict called The Misfit. In the story, the Grandmother is a very judgemental and selfish character who believes she is above everyone. She insults her grandchildren and daughter in law, makes the whole family change their vacation because she wants doesn’t want to go to Tennessee, and smuggles her cat into the car because she wants to be with her cat. She is everything Christians should not be, yet even she is able to repent, and receive God’s grace before death. When held at gunpoint by The Misfit, she has an epiphany, and forgives The Misfit, when she’s held at