Preview

Hard To Find Symbolism

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
875 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Hard To Find Symbolism
"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life (O’Connor 153)." This quote is just one of the many that shows how Flannery O’Connor can use dialogue to make you feel hatred, love or sympathy for the characters in her stories. O’Connor is a talented writer who is the author of a lot of short stories. This story in particular is A Good Man is Hard to Find. As seen in many Flannery O’Connor stories, they contain a lot of themes and literary elements. In this one story alone there were five themes and even more elements. The themes that were in this story are: good versus evil, religion, manipulation, family, society and class. Also, a few of the elements are foreshadowing, …show more content…
Symbolism was found many times throughout the story. The first time I came around symbolism was when the family was talking about Toomsboro. Toomsboro sounds a lot like tomb so that symbolizes the eventual fate the family will soon meet. The next symbolism I found was when The Misfit’s car was going down the road towards the disoriented family. The car was described as “big black battered hearse-like automobile (145).” The reason that this is symbolism is because a hearse is what carries coffins to funerals. The Misfit’s car represents the intimate death that the family will soon meet. Lastly, the final symbolism is the cloudless, sunless sky. Most people would think that a day with no clouds would be a beautiful, happy day filled with fun; however, this family in the story thought that but it turned out to be their worst day. Usually when a murder takes place it happens at night when it is dark and no one is around. This murder happened on a beautiful day, but the main reason I brought up this is because when The Misfit shot the Grandmother, she feel back looking up towards the beautiful sky with a smile on her face. This symbol represents that the Grandmother found inner peace with herself.
All in all I thoroughly enjoyed this short story. Flannery O’Connor is spectacular at using foreshadowing, irony, and symbolism in all her stories and many more literary elements. These stuck out to me the most in the story because they represent such big moments that are happening and going to happen. The story taught me that no matter how hard one tries to reason with someone it will probably not turn out good. I believe that to be a strong moral and I never would have been able to realize it without the use of the literary elements in
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Fiction: O'Connor's Quotes
    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Fiction: O'Connor's Quotes

    O’Connor’s quotes/theories: “It is the extreme situation that best reveals who we are essentially” and “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it” as it relates to the writing, “A good Man is Hard to Find” in which the main character, Grandmother, who lives with her only son and his family and who is domineering at best, but believes that she is a good, graceful, well-reared, and a devout Christian. While on a family trip during which the Grandmother insists on driving down a dirt road to see an old plantation home she once visited, they have a terrible accident. The Misfit, an escaped convict, stumbles across the family after their accident and whom Grandmother recognizes after seeing news reports. The extreme situation is of course that the Grandmother realizes it is her selfishness that has caused her entire family to be killed and she is probably next. While The Misfit and his friends contemplate killing the entire family, Grandmother attempts to relate to him and his “class” stating, “You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you? “I know you come from nice people.” (582) While The Misfit seems to have good manners by apologizing to the ladies for not wearing a shirt and calling them ma’am, this is not a time for manners, and it is obvious he has no remorse for his earlier mistakes as he tells Grandmother he cannot remember why he was sent to the penitentiary. He further states, “Jesus thown everything off balance.” “I call myself The Misfit because I can’t make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment.” (584) This is also the family’s experience of The Misfit’s violence. It is here that Grandmother realizes she is not the person she purports to be. It is through The Misfit that she achieves grace, and accepts that she is selfish and perhaps not a good person.…

    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Jilting Of Granny Weatherall Summary
    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Jilting Of Granny Weatherall Summary

    Symbolism is something that many others use in their writing to give meanings without coming out and saying it. The dictionary states symbolism as “the art or practice of using symbols especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible by means of visible or sensuous representations as artistic imitation or invention that is a method of revealing or suggesting immaterial, ideal, or otherwise intangible truth or states.” When authors do this it lets readers get different ideas as what they mean as they read the story, which makes them think a lot more as they read the story. This story has a lot of symbolism, most of it…

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Flannery O’connor’s Use of Symbolism, Theme, and Religion Essay Example
    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Flannery O’connor’s Use of Symbolism, Theme, and Religion Essay Example

    In this essay I will be covering the similarities, differences, and uniqueness of theme in three of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories. The stories I will be discussing are A Good Man is Hard to Find, Revelation, and Good Country People. O’Connor was considered to be a type of religious propaganda. At least one character in her stories had a name or behavior that reflected religion. Her stories most often had an aggressive twist to them. The epiphany in her stories basically always arose from the violent and aggressive twist.…

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Use of Symbolism and Foreshadowing in Flannery O'Connor's a Good Man Is Hard to Find
    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Use of Symbolism and Foreshadowing in Flannery O'Connor's a Good Man Is Hard to Find

    When an author writes a story, he or she will generally use different writing techniques to create the piece. These techniques have the ability to turn a story into something truly unique, as they allow the story to unfold in it’s own way. In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, author Flannery O’Connor used the techniques of symbolism and foreshadowing throughout the entire piece to create a deeply captivating story, as so many of the details mentioned in the beginning of the story are glimpses of the end.…

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of Flannery O Connor's Short Stories
    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Analysis Of Flannery O Connor's Short Stories

    People always strive for perfection, yet constantly fall short. Flannery O’Connor presents life as that of unredeemable pain, and that humans are simply organisms who are violent contradictions. Flannery O’Connor’s stories often feature characters that are similar in many aspects, facing different situations. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Everything That Rises Must Converge” depict much of what O’Connor is famous for in the literary world. Through the use of theme, style, and symbolism, Flannery makes it clear the powerlessness and impotence of humans and the insignificance of their desires, dreams and pretentions.…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Slaughterhouse Five analysis of symbolism, imagery, figurative language, tone, and theme.
    • 1179 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Slaughterhouse Five analysis of symbolism, imagery, figurative language, tone, and theme.

    Symbolism is hard to find in the novel, but I'm sure it's everywhere. One example of symbolism that I found occurs in Billy. Whenever Billy gets cold, his feet turn blue and ivory. These cold, corpselike colors, to me, suggest the fragility of the thin…

    • 1179 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    “Revelation” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find
    • 220 Words
    • 1 Page

    “Revelation” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find

    In two of Flannery O?Connor?s short stories, ?Revelation? and ?A Good Man is Hard to find? we find a lot of similarities in the author?s portrayal of the characters as well as themes. ?O?Connor?s stories are challenging because her characters, who initially seem radically different from people we know, turn out to be, by the end of each story, somehow familiar- somehow connected to us.? (424) However, each story also depicts it?s own unique tell of spirituality and understanding. O?Connor?s ?Revelation? is a tale of a middle class women, Ruby Turpin, who is certain about her place in society, as well as the rest of the town?s social standing. She judges people instantly and reflects on what kind of person she would be if given a choice between two equally undignified options. ?A Good Man is Hard to Find? tells the story of a family that prepares to go on vacation but before they reach their destination they take a detour prompted by the grandmother and after a car accident come in counter with a serial killer who has recently been released from jail. Both stories take place in the south and take the reader on a journey to a deeper emotional awareness, as well as beg empathy of the reader for both the protagonist as well as the…

    • 220 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Flannery O Conner
    • 1432 Words
    • 6 Pages

    A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Flannery O Conner

    Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” reveals a sense of personal corruption demonstrated through manipulation and the views of society. She shows these by using foreshadowing and characterization. In the beginning, a family of six people have a disagreement about where they are going for a vacation. The pleasant family road trip takes a sudden turn for the worst. The family is executed one by one.…

    • 1432 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Use of Symbolism in “Masque of the Red Death�? by Edgar Allan Poe Essay Example
    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Use of Symbolism in “Masque of the Red Death�? by Edgar Allan Poe Essay Example

    The next huge piece of symbolism is the ebony clock. The clock in the "Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe symbolizes the final judgment, when everyone’s life comes to an end, the clock stops. From the way he describes it “a gigantic clock…there came from the lungs… (235) the clock…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Analisys 6
    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages

    A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Analisys 6

    You are sitting in your living room at home watching the nightly news. The lead story for the night is about a family of four that were murdered. After seeing and hearing about something like that we often ask ourselves, What could possess a person enough to kill another human being? What is it that drives a person to kill? Will we ever know? Many authors use this unique mentality in short stories. They write about what the killer thinks and how he/she acts on his/her thoughts. One of these stories is "A Good Man Is Hard To Find", by Flannery O'Connor. In this story O'Connor's victim, The Misfit, is an escaped convict. He was in the Federal Penitentiary for killing his father. Throughout the story O'Connor builds up this killers mentality through his words and body language. Like many other murderers, The Misfit could not distinguish the difference between fantasy and reality.…

    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Literary Analysis of a Good Man Is Hard to Find
    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Literary Analysis of a Good Man Is Hard to Find

    Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is the story of a family’s vacation tragically ended by The Misfit and his gang. On the way to their vacation spot in Florida, the Grandmother remembers a plantation in Georgia she used to visit when she was a young lady and desperately wants to see it. She tells her son, Bailey, what road it is on and everyone is excited to see it. After a while, the grandmother realizes that she was wrong about where the plantation was and becomes so upset at herself that she knocks things over in the car which causes a car accident. A passing car stops to help the family but the Grandmother realizes that one of the men is a murderer, nicknamed, The Misfit. While one of the men with the Misfit brings small groups of the family in the forest to be killed, the Misfit and the Grandmother have a conversation about what it means to be a good person.…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism In How To Read Like A Professor
    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Symbolism In How To Read Like A Professor

    It should be understood that symbolism can have meaning outside the story. The author could be relating to him or herself, which means that symbolism could mean anything to the author. But, that means it can be hard understand, as you don’t have the same experience as the author but there will probably be something in the passage that hints to the authors meaning, queuing you to understand the…

    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Foreshadowing In A Good Man Is Hard To Find
    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Foreshadowing In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, multiple themes are conveyed through her use of foreshadowing and irony as well as a consistent point of view. The story centers around the major conflict between the Misfit and the grandmother along with her family. This story can be viewed in many ways because of the unusually large number of themes used in this story ranging from religion to society and class. Foreshadowing can be found throughout the story leading up to the brutal execution of the family beginning with the grandmother’s comment on her elaborate outfit for the road trip to the “hearse-like” (373) vehicle the Misfit drove. O’Connor’s clever use of irony stands out in this short story. She uses a wide range of irony to get across her message. Third person point of view was used for the short story. The point of view was limited because the reader is informed of only the grandmother’s…

    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Flannery O Connor Revelation Analysis
    • 1279 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Flannery O Connor Revelation Analysis

    The writer creates a place through which a group of people can get and, above all, translate the message that the writer tries to send, and it is essential for us as readers to have the capacity to trust what the writer is stating, regardless of the class of writing. An alum of Georgia State College for Women, Flannery O'Connor for the most part managed works of fiction that regularly were affected by mainstream occasions, impacted by her Catholic foundation. There is confirm such O'Connor's reality and composing were formed by customs of the American South, especially obvious in her striking dialect all through this short story alone, however her written work spreads out from the regional limits of the South and have a tendency to resound profound inside every person that she touches through her…

    • 1279 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Good Man Is Hard To Find Rhetorical Devices
    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages

    A Good Man Is Hard To Find Rhetorical Devices

    Flannery O’Connor gives you insight to the end of her story by using foreshadowing. The foreshadowing in "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" of the Grandmother's dress, making the trip to Florida towards a killer, O’Connor stating that, "In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was lady" and the graveyard are just a few things that allow you to predict the violence caused in the end by The Misfit. In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” there are strong symbols and images that allow you to predict the inevitable events caused by The Misfit. The foreshadowing is just enough to where it is noticeable when read closely, but does not ruin the end of the story or take away the reader’s…

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics