In the short story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, O’Connor demonstrates the reality of a broken family. The story goes of a …show more content…
The story is a about a man who stumbles upon the home of a woman and her deaf daughter. She offers him a place to stay in exchange for labor to be done on the house. The man agrees and becomes familiar with the daughter, when the mother witnesses this she pushed him to marry her daughter. Because of so much relentless pushing the man ends up abandoning the girl in a diner and then leaving to do his own thing. The title itself is already a foreshadow of the multiple events of self-interest. The first one would be when the mother -Lucynell- is speaking to Tom about her daughter and she says, “Any man come after her…’ll have to stay around the place”. This is already foreshadowing the proposition she’ll offer Tom later on. Then when it talks about Tom fixing the place and teaching the daughter to say a word it says, “The old woman watched from a distance, secretly pleased. She was ravenous for a son-in-law”. The old woman doesn't care about his happiness or her daughter’s happiness all she cares about is that there will be someone there after she dies. She is also very obnoxiously persistent with the proposal, when she brings it up to him she talks about him needing someone quiet, who won't “sass” him, someone who wouldn't give him any trouble, basically suggesting her daughter. Then she says, “Saturday…you and her and me can drive into town and get …show more content…
His may have a more valid reasoning, but it doesn't excuse what he does. Leaving the courtroom it's already hinted that he was bothered and yet he blames it on the “law”. When they're on the road headed to their weekend trip it states, “He became depressed in spite of the car”, then while at the diner, “The boy bent over again and very carefully touched his finger to a strand of the golden hair and Mr. Shiftlet left”. This demonstrates his selfishness by leaving a deaf girl alone in an unfamiliar place just because he felt uncomfortable and pressured to marry her. O’Connor’s message that people only look to God in desperate times is shown in this story too. After the hitchhiker hops out of his car and he speeds away he says, “Oh Lord! Break forth and was my the slime from this earth!” He knows he's done wrong, and although he may not have believed in a God now that he realizes how wrong he's been he begs the Lord to wash his dirty hands for