Preview

A good man is hard to find

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
598 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A good man is hard to find
thesis

In the following paragraphs, you will also exposed to how a calm title “A Good Man is Hard to Find” will bring new perspective to the type of person you would consider to be a good man and how we can be faced with a situation where we find ourselves trying to see the good, in even the most evil kind of men.

Setting
Throughout the short story by Flannery O’Connor’s story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” used cultural context that represents the use and belief of a southern roots lifestyle that took place in a small town in Georgia somewhere between the 1940’s-1950’s. The Grandmother is the main character and in several instances she replicates the historical and cultural race issues present during those times because she would refer to African Americans as “Negros” or “N*gg* rs” which was common use of slang by southern whites around that time. For example, the Grandma was telling her young obnoxious granddaughter named June Star, a story and even mentioned a derogatory statement which was stated “Little nigg*rs in the country don’t have thinks like we do” which

Characterization

Main character “Grandmother”
After having an accident the elusive criminal The Misfit incidentally passes by their location. Being recognized as The Misfit by the grandmother, he consequently starts killing her family with the help of two companions. Instead of begging for the lives of her son, her daughter-in-law or her grandchildren, the grandmother only tries to convince the criminal not to take her life. BUT…..
Focusing on the grandmother’s conscience it becomes obvious that she shows two different sides. Although she actually wants to travel to Tennessee she appears to also be real worried about travelling to Florida because she has read about The Misfit being a fugitive murderer in that region. “[She] couldn’t answer to [her] conscience”(p.1) if she sent her own children near such danger. So here she appeals to her conscience being a truly worried person

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Nancy Nester’s “O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find” construes that it is “Bailey whose “goodness” accrues throughout the story, that it may be Bailey, in fact, whose goodness the grandmother affirms at its climax.” She believes that Bailey is a “good but overlooked man” in the story. She denotes the numerous instances, which were often ignored by other critics, Bailey symbolizes or acts as the one piece of good represented throughout the story.…

    • 361 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    While waiting for help to come along, the first car to arrive happens to be The Misfit and his two partners. Now in the hands of a killer the family has no chance of getting away. The Misfit orders his two partners to take Bailey and John Wesley into the woods to be killed, the rest of the family will be next. The grandmother lies on the ground in shock trying to convince The Misfit that he is a good man and would never shoot a woman. The Misfit starts to explain his life and why he does not pray as the grandmother insisted him to. The grandmother then finds a moment of sympathy in which she reaches out and calls him one of her own children. The Misfit responds by shooting the grandmother in the chest multiple times. The story comes to an end after The Misfit states “She would have been a good woman…If it had been someone there to shoot her every minute of her life”. The two main characters in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the grandmother and The Misfit share many differences although they become shockingly…

    • 1307 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After the accident the family is approached by a man the grandmother soon recognizes to be the Misfit. The grandmother has now gained her chance at salvation by meeting the Misfit, whom has made up his mind to be a sinner. The Misfit is accompanied by two men…

    • 647 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    DIRECTIONS: Read each sub-set of directions and answer all questions, using text evidence when necessary. Answer all questions in complete sentences, unless directly stated.…

    • 313 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The grandmother in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is a round, dynamic character. She is a quirky protagonist who undergoes a change at the end of the story during her encounter with the antagonist, The Misfit. Until the final paragraphs of the story, the grandmother is selfish and manipulative. She’s set in her old fashioned ways.…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In addition it demonstrates the lack of compassion and fatherly representation he was given as a younger child. For most of his life he had been struggling with adapting to the values of the everyday society, and inevitably ends up killing more people as a way to survive the torment of “punishment”. His previous life, in the penitentiary, didn’t serve as a force of justice, but rather it provided a way for Misfit to undergo a disturbing transformation into a spiteful murder. In addition, Misfit’s dialect demonstrates how the hateful and misjudgment of our society can negatively affect the way a person carries on with their…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    One of the utmost unforgettable lines from “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” originates from the Misfit when he says, “She would have been a good woman if it had been someone there to shoot her for every minute of her life (O'Connor).” Flannery O’Connor’s illustration of Christianity can be seen in within this text. Certainly, the plot ends with an appalling conclusion, and this leaves the reader with liberty to understand the central idea of this story. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is largely influenced by divine authority and other elements within the story.…

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Good Man is Hard to Find

    • 1397 Words
    • 4 Pages

    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.…

    • 1397 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The setting of the story is never really clear to the reader. The author never really comes out and says where and when the story takes place, but with a few clues an idea is given on a pretty clear setting of “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” The time period begins in the mid-twentieth century. In the first half of the story, the family is at their home in Atlanta, Georgia. The author never really says that they are in Atlanta, but in the story the grandmother writes down that it will take them approximately take them 20 minutes to reach the outskirts of the city. When the family begins on their trip to East Tennessee instead of Florida early that morning, the grandmother observes it’s a beautiful day, not to hot nor cold. They pass up many old plantations and open fields. The grandmother also observes the details in the scenery she describes “the Stone Mountain; the blue granite that in some places came up to both sides of the highway; the brilliant red clay banks slightly streaked with purple; and the various crops that made rows of green lace-work on the ground. The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled”. –O’Conner. They are obviously in the open country and used to seeing the old plantations because there was really no excitement from the family with the children reading magazines and the mother falling asleep, so with this clue as well gave a hint on where the family was from. During their long road trip the…

    • 2442 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Through use of superiority and racist attitudes, the grandmother keeps the idea of the “Old South” alive. The setting of the story gives visual to those ideas through old buildings and style of roads. Together, these aspects of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” show the differences between the US now and the US of the 1950’s. Without the social prejudices of that time period, the story would lack the importance of the grandmother’s character which is to teach readers to be a more progressive…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    a good man is hard to find

    • 1028 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In the story the author deal with the idea of “good” in different ways trying to show that only, because of being a “good man” doesn’t mean to be “moral” person. She represents most of these ideas by the character of the grandmother, who had, with the Misfit, a big role in the story becoming the two of them the major characters of the story. The grandmother represents a woman that thinks she is morally higher, she never thinks she can be wrong doesn’t seeing her hypocrisy and selfishness, until the point that she lies to her family about the location of a place, or lying to a children about a panel. For the grandmother a person that is a “good man” is that one that has the same thoughts as her, for example for the grandmother the Misfit a “good man” because she thinks that man couldn’t shoot a lady. The role of the lady is important because it appears since the beginning to the end of the story, just in the first pages of the story when the author shows what the grandmother wears for the journey: “…, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at one that she was a lady.”…

    • 1028 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” O’Connor, Flannery. In A Good Man is Hard to Find, by O’Connor, Flannery; Asals, Frederick. pp. 31-54. Rutgers University Press, 1993. (24 pages).…

    • 1874 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the Misfit and his men slowly kill off her family and her death becomes inevitable, she begins to reflect on her own life. The Grandma begins by trying to convince him to turn to faith. However, as she continues, she sees many of her qualities within the Misfit. She says, ‘“ Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!’ She reached out and touched him on the shoulder.” At this moment, she realizes all of the bad things that she has done in her life and sees that the way she lives her life is the kind of life that breeds a serial killer. Not very many people have the ability to raise a serial killer, allowing the reader to conclude that she lives a life disjointed from society and does not conform to the beliefs that many people live by. As a quick reaction and an attempt to distance himself from the humanity of the grandma, the Misfit, “sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them.” This type of connection frightened him, as this is the first sense of connection and care that the Misfit has felt throughout the killing spree. This is much different than how others would face a serial killer. This comes as the grandma comes to good terms with her life. As a result of this, the grandmas deceased body, “half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child's and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky.” This is not how we typically imagine a dead body. The way she is described makes her sound much like a buddha, with her legs crossed and smiling towards the sky. This is something that is typically associated with peace and comfort. This means, that the grandma had come to terms with the bad things that she had done in her life and could now relax and die…

    • 979 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Precaution is always need it, in this short story the grandma warned his son about a criminal that called himself “the misfit” telling him he was headed to Florida. Bailey should have realized that traveling at this time could be very dangerous for him and his family.…

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this story, the Grandmother considers herself “the lady” of the family. The Grandmother considers herself having higher standards of other people and frequently passes judgment on others. She is a very talkative, nagging, narcissistic, and manipulative woman that frequently bosses the other family members around. For example, The Grandmother says, “Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did” (O’Connor 436). She also…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics