Response To A Good Man Is Hard To Find
English 102: Literature & Composition
Response to A Good Man is Hard to Find
In A Good Man is Hard to Find, the author, Flannery O’Connor, focuses heavily on the suggestion of “good” in the story’s characters. However, the perception of what makes a person “good” is different for each character. I believe that an individual’s upbringing and placement in society determine that person’s definition of what makes one “good.” Subsequently, I believe that a person can only be considered "good" based on his or her intentions and actions.
To the grandmother, being “good” means to be proper and lady-like. She was very concerned with her appearance, and even felt the need to dress up for the family road trip. To sit in the car, she wore white cotton gloves, a …show more content…
Conversely, after examining her persona in the text, I do not feel that she is “good” under my standards. Represented by her thoughts and actions, I feel that she is manipulative and self-centered. In several instances throughout the story’s timeline, the grandmother manipulated the people around her to achieve individual gain. In the beginning, she tried to convince her son to change the destination of family road trip. Although everyone else wanted to visit Florida, the grandmother wished to travel to Tennessee in order to connect with some of her old acquaintances. In order to accomplish this, she kept making excuses as to why the family should go to Tennessee instead. Secondly, the grandmother lied about the features of an old house in order to influence the children to pressure their father into making a detour. The story states: “she [the grandmother] knew that Bailey would not be willing to lose any time looking at an old house, but the more she talked about it, the more she wanted to see it once again and find out if the little twin arbors were still standing. "There was a secret panel in
Response to A Good Man is Hard to Find
In A Good Man is Hard to Find, the author, Flannery O’Connor, focuses heavily on the suggestion of “good” in the story’s characters. However, the perception of what makes a person “good” is different for each character. I believe that an individual’s upbringing and placement in society determine that person’s definition of what makes one “good.” Subsequently, I believe that a person can only be considered "good" based on his or her intentions and actions.
To the grandmother, being “good” means to be proper and lady-like. She was very concerned with her appearance, and even felt the need to dress up for the family road trip. To sit in the car, she wore white cotton gloves, a …show more content…
Conversely, after examining her persona in the text, I do not feel that she is “good” under my standards. Represented by her thoughts and actions, I feel that she is manipulative and self-centered. In several instances throughout the story’s timeline, the grandmother manipulated the people around her to achieve individual gain. In the beginning, she tried to convince her son to change the destination of family road trip. Although everyone else wanted to visit Florida, the grandmother wished to travel to Tennessee in order to connect with some of her old acquaintances. In order to accomplish this, she kept making excuses as to why the family should go to Tennessee instead. Secondly, the grandmother lied about the features of an old house in order to influence the children to pressure their father into making a detour. The story states: “she [the grandmother] knew that Bailey would not be willing to lose any time looking at an old house, but the more she talked about it, the more she wanted to see it once again and find out if the little twin arbors were still standing. "There was a secret panel in