Summary Of A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

Some people believe there is good in everyone, it just takes the right person to bring it out in them. Flannery O’Connor is one of those people. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” begins with the grandmother wanting to visit east Tennessee but the family wanting to go to Florida. The grandmother wanted to revisit her memories from when she was a little girl to, not only tell, but show her son, Bailey’s children, where she grew up as a little girl. Bailey refused to go to east Tennessee, so the grandmother tried to argue her point by saying, “The children have already been to Florida. You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the word and be broad.” Flannery O’Connor used flashbacks, imagery, and irony
For her not to want to go, one might think she would be the last in the car. The grandmother snuck her pet cat, Pitty Sing, in the car because she knew Bailey would disapprove of Pitty Sing going with them. She believed that if the cat stayed home, she would rub against the gas burners and suffocate herself. As they began their journey, the grandmother was continuously telling her son not to drive too fast as she pointed out points of interesting scenery while telling the children stories. Bailey grows irritated by the stories, the children’s noise, and the various baby cries [Kaplan]. O’Connor used one story as a flashback to show how the grandmother is remembering precious life stories. In one of the stories, the grandmother told her grandchildren that she had the chance to marry Mr. Edgar A. Teagarden. She described him as good-looking, and a gentleman. She explained how he brought her watermelons on Saturdays with his initials, E.A.T, cut in them. The grandmother further explained why she would have done well to marry Mr. Teagarden, saying he bought Coca-Cola stock and died a wealthy man [Holmes].
They stopped at a restaurant, which was part of a house, a wood filling station, and a dance hall, for barbecue sandwiches. O’Connor used the character Red Sammy to show pity. Red Sammy told the grandmother how to men came in and got gas off of credit but he was not sure why he let them. The grandmother replied
The Misfit state “God never made a finer woman than my mother ...” The grandmother continued to try to convince him that he was a good man at heart. The misfit was trying not to care and told his two men to take Bailey to the woods when his son grabbed him by the hand. The grandmother and the Misfit continued to talk about family and being a good person. When the grandmother asked him if he prayed he almost could not speak, he squeezed out a no ma’am. He told her about the times he was a gospel singer, was in the armed services, at home and overseas, was married twice, worked with railroads, was a mortician, was a plower, was in a tornado, seen a man burnt alive, and seen a woman beat. He also explained how he was in the penitentiary and was buried alive. To the grandmother, that was the perfect time to start praying. The misfit continues about his journeys telling how after so many crimes, they start to fade away. O’Connor involves Christianity by involving the role of sin [Holmes].
The Misfit convinces the mother and the children to go into the woods, where he had her husband killed. Since the grandmother kept talking about praying, the importance of Jesus, and that he was a good man on the inside. The irony was displayed throughout the story. O’Connor tried to insinuate the family will run into the misfit, then she uses the quote “in case of an accident,