In A good man is hard to find, the grandmother had a complicated set of moral codes that did not compel with the natural moral codes that a catholic would be known to have. The catholic values are set to be the most reliable and trustworthy person one can be. Unfortunately the grandmother's intention…
Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find follows a peculiar Grandmother as a string of events she is responsible for eventually lead to the death of her loved ones and herself. First and foremost, the grandmother, a manipulative and self-interested lady with no intention of compromising, suggests the family take their vacation through Tennessee rather than Florida, partly in an attempt to avoid a so-called Misfit who appears to be “aloose from the Federal Pen” (3) in Florida. Unfortunately, the Misfit is actually in Tennessee, and thus begins the implausible sequence of events peaking in the murder of the grandmother’s family.…
“A good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O'Conner depicts a southern family, who is at odds about where they should go for a family vacation. They will eventually agree to head for Florida, once in the car the family will go through a series of events that will shapen each indivudal character. One of the main characters in the story, “The Grandmother”, who is known for her critical , savvy ways gives the audience her definition of what exactly it means to be a lady. The Grandmother and her family will be put to death by an escaped criminal by the name of the Misfit, who the grandmother warns the family of before there voyage to Florida. In the story one will see that although the Grandmother had not been a known convicted felon, like the Misfit, her way for thinking and immoral behavior was no different than that of the Misfit and that they were alike in many different ways. Although the Grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to find”, tries to portray herself has a good role model and a Christian lady one will later see as story evolve that she was a woman contrary of her word and was indeed the ultimate “misfit”.…
The grandmother in Flannery O’Connor’s, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a very unique character. At first glance you may think she is just a usual old fashion grandmother living in an updated world, which is true, but there is more to her than meets the eye.…
The tragic heroes and narcissists in the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor are the Grandmother and the Misfit. However, the focus is on the Grandmother and how she is in the grandiosity phase of being a tragic hero. There are personality characteristics associated with this phase, some of which the Grandmother has. She feels entitlement to get and do what she wants. In the story she takes her pet cat with her on the trip even though Bailey tells her not to. The Grandmother is a judgmental person. She judges other people based on petty things like clothes or first impressions. Finally, the Grandmother’s omniscience personality gets her killed.…
Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a story of an innocent family’s bad luck when they are met by The Mistfit, who is an escaped serial killer. The story revolves around the grandmother who is a kind hearted elderly southern woman that has the pleasure of living with her son, his wife and rude children. She is also a very classy woman who believe she should look her best everywhere she goes, simply because in an accident “anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady”. The family criticizes the grandmother for the fear of a possible attack by The Mistfit and feline asphyxiation. She acknowledges the pointless things such as mileage, the speed of the car, and cemeteries.…
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…
Flannery O’Conner short story “A Good Man is hard to Find” Is about this grandmother who is plotting to get her own way through whatever means is necessary. So the fact is “The grandmother’s whole personality is built upon the fictions she tells herself and her family” (Schenck, 340). “She creates the stories behind the visual phenomena she sees and explains the relationships between events or her own actions which have no logic other than that which she lends them” (Schenck, 340). The grandmother who imaged a life she once had that turn to a tragedy of reality for her and her family. She does not admit it, but her thoughts manifest themselves physically and emotionally. The grandmother got so embarrassed that her cheek was red and her eyes widen and she begins to stomp her feet and this really upset her at that moment.…
In this paper, I will analyze a section of Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Nearing the end of the short story, there is a scene between pages 150 and 152 where the Misfit and the Grandmother exchange thoughts on their beliefs and how they questioned them. While the Misfit’s beliefs were based on rigorous examination and re-evaluation, the grandmother’s beliefs stemmed from blind faith, which, in a sense contributed to her demise at the end of the story.…
“A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the grandmother and Misfit live by moral codes that affect their decisions, actions, and perceptions. A moral code is a set of beliefs and behaviors that people abide by to live what they consider to be a reasonable, fulfilling lives. The term moral doesn’t necessarily mean “good”; it’s simply a code of conduct, while the righteousness of a person’s morals is entirely subjective. Although at first glance the Misfit’s code seems to be misguided, it is actually the grandmother’s code that proves to be flimsy and inconsistent. The grandmother has built her moral code on the characteristics that she believes make people “good.” She places great stock in being a lady, for example, which emphasizes appearance over substance.…
A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor is a short story that depicts a family road trip to Florida that ends in an abysmal tragedy when they meet the Misfit, a remorseless convict who has escaped from prison. In the beginning, the Grandmother is obsessed with everything worldly and superficial. She is completely focused on herself in relation to how others think of her. Towards the end of the story, the grandmother finds herself in ominous dialogue with The Misfit. In the story, The Misfit represents a quasi-final judgment. He does this by acting like a mirror. He lets whatever The Grandmother says bounce right off him. He never agrees nor disagrees with the grandmother, and in the end, he is the one who kills her. At the end of the story, before the Grandmother meets her fate, she has a moment of redemption. She finally distinguishes The Misfit for who he really is, not a psychopathic killer on the loose; but a person just like herself. The Misfit, being a man who is not created from social class; he is a simple human being just like the grandmother. At this point she sees herself in relation to everyone else. She finally realizes that she is not made by her class. Society makes the class, and she just fits into it. She shows this by claiming that The Misfit could be one of her own children. This story is meant to be interpreted as a parable, whereby O'Connor made skilful use of symbolism to bring about messages such as the social-superiority and the lack of spiritual faith that exist amongst common people; and the grace in humans is exposed, only when facing adverse and fatal circumstances.…
O’Connor paints her own picture of what the grandmother believes to be a “good man.” The grandmother seems to treat goodness mostly as a function of being decent, having good manners, and coming from a family of "the right people." At the beginning of the story the grandmother discusses a story of her past love explaining how he was the most upright gentleman she met, claiming he too was a “good man.” She stated “he was a very good- looking man and a gentleman and that he brought her watermelon every Sunday afternoon with his initials cut in it, E.A.T.” (O’Connor 98). The grandmother was unique in the way she described…
The grandmother’s ideas about a good man are that they behave as a gentleman, this is shown by how much she worries whether she acting like a proper lady or not. That the man should have superior blood, and not common blood. The grandmother states over, and over again that the misfits is a good man because he “…don’t look a bit like you have common blood” (O’Connor 370). She thinks that bloodlines make you a good person, as many people in the south used to. Then at the end of the story when the grandmother, shows that she can identify what a good man is, after the Misfit dawned on her son Baily’s shirt she finally seen that he Misfits was one of her children. She identified the Misfit with Baily. She seen him, as Baily. Nancy Nester, the author of the critical analysis “O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find” explains that the grandmother recognized her son’s clothing and realized the goodness to be found in the quotidian, the commonplace. That the good man was one of her babies, one of her children. The good man was Baily (Nester…
The grandmother confirms her hypocrisy throughout Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by acting as a liar, racist, and being judgmental. She also reveals her lack of understanding of her religion during her final moments, further confirming her hypocrisy. The main point that O’Connor is working towards is that just to claim religion is not enough. You must truly believe and work in your faith. The grandmother acts as the Guinea pig for us. She is put through a life and death situation and her religious act is not enough to pass. Essentially, the Guinea pig fails the…
In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, O’Connor seems to suggest that only through conflicts can the “good” in people be found. The way that the grandmother seems to dwell in the past suggests that she believes that it would’ve been easier to find a “good” man a long time ago. To the grandmother, trying to find goodness today would prove to be very challenging and possibly even useless. Through the use of symbolism, foreshadowing, and metaphors, O’Connor develops the story’s theme.…