"A Good Man is Hard to Find" Analyzing Essay
Sally Sue
Mrs. Smith
Honors English IV
21 August 20
A Good Man is Hard to Find: Analysis By the title, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, a reader would not suspect what the story is really about. One might assume that Flannery O’Connor’s short story is about finding love perhaps, rather than moral, murders, and convicts. Contrarily, the meaning of this story is even deeper than the naked eye can reveal. Throughout Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” a manipulative setting, leads to domination over the other characters in the story; moreover, leading to symbolic animalistic attributes, fabricating a profound meaning of hypocritical aspects. The monkey presented in the story symbolizes the animalistic nature of humans. The monkey represents the stubborn, bias, and shallow views of the people of the time period in the quote, “... a gray monkey about a foot high, chained to a chinaberry tree, chattered nearby. The monkey sprang back into the tree and got to the highest limb as soon as he saw the children jump out of the car and run toward him.”(O’Connor 325) The animal is chained to signify the limitations to the views the characters like the Grandmother and Red Sam believe. When someone poses animal-like characteristics, humans completely dominate their environment that our social structures have become ecosystems unto themselves. Animals learn to act exactly like their parents as they grow to adulthood; furthermore, once the animal is an adult, it has the behaviors, ideas, and motives of the parents that will never change and will pass those traits on to the next generation. This corresponds with the Grandmother and the story, with her children and grandchildren; for example, when a person is the most dominant character in the family, the inferior ones follow behind grasping the beliefs of the dominate character. The Grandmother’s immutable ways make her the dominant character in the allegory. It is written in the story, “..The old
Mrs. Smith
Honors English IV
21 August 20
A Good Man is Hard to Find: Analysis By the title, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, a reader would not suspect what the story is really about. One might assume that Flannery O’Connor’s short story is about finding love perhaps, rather than moral, murders, and convicts. Contrarily, the meaning of this story is even deeper than the naked eye can reveal. Throughout Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” a manipulative setting, leads to domination over the other characters in the story; moreover, leading to symbolic animalistic attributes, fabricating a profound meaning of hypocritical aspects. The monkey presented in the story symbolizes the animalistic nature of humans. The monkey represents the stubborn, bias, and shallow views of the people of the time period in the quote, “... a gray monkey about a foot high, chained to a chinaberry tree, chattered nearby. The monkey sprang back into the tree and got to the highest limb as soon as he saw the children jump out of the car and run toward him.”(O’Connor 325) The animal is chained to signify the limitations to the views the characters like the Grandmother and Red Sam believe. When someone poses animal-like characteristics, humans completely dominate their environment that our social structures have become ecosystems unto themselves. Animals learn to act exactly like their parents as they grow to adulthood; furthermore, once the animal is an adult, it has the behaviors, ideas, and motives of the parents that will never change and will pass those traits on to the next generation. This corresponds with the Grandmother and the story, with her children and grandchildren; for example, when a person is the most dominant character in the family, the inferior ones follow behind grasping the beliefs of the dominate character. The Grandmother’s immutable ways make her the dominant character in the allegory. It is written in the story, “..The old