Flannery O 'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find'

Is There a Good Man or Good Woman? If a person is manipulative and their actions are paid for with people’s lives, would they be considered good? In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor the grandmother shows qualities that ask that question. Three reasons why are the following, she is manipulative, selfish, and fake. There is no good man or good woman in this story. The grandmother manipulates her son into going to an old plantation that she visited when she was young. She does this by saying to the kids “There was a secret panel in this house, she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing she were” (935). If there was a secret panel actually in the house that would be really cool, but there isn’t one. She says this so that the kids are interested. They whine and complain, begging their dad to go to the house. Eventually he decides to go to the house to get them to be quiet and quit complaining. The only reason the grandmother does this is because she wants to go to that house.
The grandmother lies to the kids about the secret panel. She gets them to whine and complain and finally the father agrees to go. Towards the end of the story O’Connor writes, “I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady” (938). Rather than her being worried about her family getting killed, all she is worried about is herself dying. She repeats this a couple times in the rest of the story begging for him to spare her life, not caring about if her family lives or not. A good woman would not worry just about herself. She would worry about the people she cares about