Symbolism and Religious Subtext in Flannery O'Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find

Flannery O’Conner’s short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find is a modern parable. The story is laced with symbolism and religious subtext. In many ways the piece is similar to classical Greek plays about pride and retribution. Before launching into a discussion of O’Conner’s story it is important to understand the woman and her motivations to write. O’Conner was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925 to her devout Catholic parents, Edward and Regina O’Conner. Flannery spent her youth attending Catholic parochial schools. In 1938, the family moved to a town just outside Atlanta called Milledgeville where Flannery continued her education. Unfortunately, her father would ultimately die in this town as the result of complications from the disease lupus. Flannery went on to Georgia State College for Women and then proceeded to the State University of Iowa where she received her MFA in 1947. It was 1951, O’Conner went to the doctor complaining of heaviness in her arms. It was then that she was diagnosed with the same disease that killed her father. She would go through the rest of her life fighting a losing battle against lupus. In the end, O’Conner wrote two novels and thirty-two short stories. She went on tour and won numerous awards and honors, struggling with her disease the entire time. Flannery O’Conner died of lupus in August of 1964. She was thirty-nine years old. O’Conner’s work was rooted in two facets of her life, her religion and her disease. The combination of these two items fashioned both her outlook on life and on her characters. Her work, however is never preachy. One must look beneath the surface to understand what she is really trying to say. Her writing is filled with meaning and symbolism, hidden in plain sight beneath a seamless narrative style that breathes not a word of agenda, of dogma, or of personal belief. In this way, her writing is intrinsically esoteric, in that it contains knowledge that is hidden to all but

Bibliography: O’Conner, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find. 1953. Galloway, Patrick. The Dark Side of Flannery O’Conner. 1996. Mitchel, J. Tin Jesus: The Intellectual in Selected Short Fiction of Flannery O’Conner. 2000. Coles, Robert. Flannery O’Conner’s South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1980. Martin, Carter W. The True Country: Themes in Fiction of Flannery O’Conner. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 1969. Fletscher, Jessica. The Story of Flannery O’Conner. 2000. Browning, Preston M., Flannery O’Conner. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1974 Feeley, Kathleen, Flannery O’Conner: Voice of the Peacock. New York: Fordham UP, 1982. Influences on Flannery O’Conner. 2003. Biography. McGloughlin, Bill. Flannery O’Conner’s Childhood Home. 1997.