Flannery O Connor Create Suspense In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

A. On Flannery O’ Connor’s literary piece “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” we can find how she evokes horror in an implicit, yet harmonious way. At first the text illustrates how this family is getting ready for a road trip. And while we’re being presented these various scenarios, O’ Connor in a clever way starts teasing us with little clues regarding the character (or Characters) who will be in charge of evoking this feeling of suspense and horror. These characters are introduced in subtle parts at the beginning of the story, they don’t start having relevancy until later. When we start seeing more and more of these clues and teases, we start to realize that these individuals have more relevancy on the story. The trick is that we don’t know how
or why are these characters relevant, if in theory they’re not related to the main characters, at all. With this maneuver O’Connor starts building up the feeling of suspense on the reader. However, when the main characters cross paths with these individuals the mood of suspense starts to become grimier and grimier, it starts to turn into horror. The horror becomes completely explicit when the grandmother realizes who they stumbled upon with. These lines, these sentences can somehow manage to change the mood in such an abrupt way, yet they don’t break the spell of keeping the suspense alive. What Flannery O’Connor achieved with this story is just a plain and simple marvel. The way she kept the horror and suspense alive throughout the story it’s something admirable.