Preview

A Good Man Is Hard to Find Character Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1499 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Good Man Is Hard to Find Character Analysis
Brenda Murphy
Professor Weldon
English 102
28 September 2010
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
Character Analysis and Comparison

“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor is about a family from Georgia who are murdered on a road trip to Florida. It begins with the grandmother complaining to her son Bailey that she would rather go to Tennessee for vacation and not Florida. She tells him about an escaped murderer who is going to Florida named the Misfit in hopes to change his mind. The day of the trip the grandmother is dressed in her best and prepared to die as a lady if something should happen to them on the way. They stop at a barbecue restaurant for lunch, where the Grandmother talks with the owner Red Sammy about the Misfit and how hard it is to find a good man. Back in the car the grandmother talks about a house she saw when she was young, lying saying that the house has secret passages which makes the children want to see it more. They begin to jump and kick the back of the seat in front of them until the father agrees. When they get on an old abandoned road the grandmother realizes that the house is in Tennessee. The grandmother gets flustered and scares her cat which jumped up on Baily, causing him lose control of the car and it flip and land in a ditch. The adults are in shock and the kids are excited as if the accident was an adventure to them. As the family sit and wait for help a car comes and three men step out. One the grandmother recognizes at the Misfit. The Misfit tells them he wished she hadn’t recognized him implying that he would not have killed them if she did not. Starting with the father and son the other two guys takes all of the family except the grandmother into the woods and kills them. The grandmother pleads for her life as she hears the gunshots and tries to convince the Misfit that he is a good man, and for him to pray. The Misfit goes into a rant telling the grandmother all about him his past and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, a family plans a vacation to Florida, in which it does not turn out as they had expected. The story begins with a family from Georgia consisting of the father Bailey, his wife, baby, two kids John Wesley and June Star, and their grandmother whose name is never announced. Among planning their trip to Florida, the Grandmother suggest they go elsewhere, justifying herself saying that there is a misfit on the loose and he’s heading that direction. The rest of the family does not take her suggestion seriously, and so the next day they all leave for Florida, including the grandmother. The grandmother makes the decision to bring her cat along for the trip as well while not telling any of the other family. During the trip, the grandmother tells the children stories and plays games with…

    • 1307 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” is a story of tragedy about a family planning a vacation against…

    • 472 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Flannery O’ Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” is about family, violence, and cruelty. The author uses the archetypes situational, symbolic, setting and character so that the reader can understand the short story. The situational archetype that O’ Connor uses is battle between the good and evil. She shows this in her story when the grandmother tries to convince the Misfit to pray and not do anything bad. The symbolic archetype that she uses is water vs. dessert because she describes how the sky was lonely with no clouds and that there was sun but no sun to be seen. In most cases, loneliness indicates that something bad is going to happen. The setting that she conveys here is a family road trip that ends in a tragic way. The…

    • 178 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find follows a peculiar Grandmother as a string of events she is responsible for eventually lead to the death of her loved ones and herself. First and foremost, the grandmother, a manipulative and self-interested lady with no intention of compromising, suggests the family take their vacation through Tennessee rather than Florida, partly in an attempt to avoid a so-called Misfit who appears to be “aloose from the Federal Pen” (3) in Florida. Unfortunately, the Misfit is actually in Tennessee, and thus begins the implausible sequence of events peaking in the murder of the grandmother’s family.…

    • 2190 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “A good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O'Conner depicts a southern family, who is at odds about where they should go for a family vacation. They will eventually agree to head for Florida, once in the car the family will go through a series of events that will shapen each indivudal character. One of the main characters in the story, “The Grandmother”, who is known for her critical , savvy ways gives the audience her definition of what exactly it means to be a lady. The Grandmother and her family will be put to death by an escaped criminal by the name of the Misfit, who the grandmother warns the family of before there voyage to Florida. In the story one will see that although the Grandmother had not been a known convicted felon, like the Misfit, her way for thinking and immoral behavior was no different than that of the Misfit and that they were alike in many different ways. Although the Grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to find”, tries to portray herself has a good role model and a Christian lady one will later see as story evolve that she was a woman contrary of her word and was indeed the ultimate “misfit”.…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This story starts out with a grandmother who lives with her son and his family. The Family decides to drive down to Florida for a vacation even though the grandmother protests it and states that she would rather go to Tennessee. The main reason why she doesn't want to go to Florida is because she has read about a crazed killer by the name of the Misfit who is on the run heading for Florida. The story starts out normal and on a steady pace but then all of the sudden a surprising turn of events take place. In the story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor uses a lot of foreshadowing which hints towards how the story will end.…

    • 578 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    You are sitting in your living room at home watching the nightly news. The lead story for the night is about a family of four that were murdered. After seeing and hearing about something like that we often ask ourselves, What could possess a person enough to kill another human being? What is it that drives a person to kill? Will we ever know? Many authors use this unique mentality in short stories. They write about what the killer thinks and how he/she acts on his/her thoughts. One of these stories is "A Good Man Is Hard To Find", by Flannery O'Connor. In this story O'Connor's victim, The Misfit, is an escaped convict. He was in the Federal Penitentiary for killing his father. Throughout the story O'Connor builds up this killers mentality through his words and body language. Like many other murderers, The Misfit could not distinguish the difference between fantasy and reality.…

    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor, is a detailed account of a family trip to Florida that ends in tragedy. On this journey, the family meets several different characters along the way. No matter how insignificant each character is O’Connor is sure to give the reader a full understanding of their intentions and personality. Although the reader never gets to know some of the characters names, O’Connor is sure to make the reader feel as though he knows each character personally. O’Connor uses characterization techniques such as actions, clothing and family life that allow the reader to…

    • 1982 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good 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
  • Good Essays

    In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” you meet a family, but the member of the family that sticks out is the grandmother. She says many things that makes one wonder what is going on in her head. For example, when she says “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O'Connor). This is a one of the first sentences from the reading “A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor. When reading this sentence, it makes one wonder; why does the grandmother care so much about being know as a lady? The story about a family of five going on vacation and they bring their “well” mannered grandmother, who just seems very stuck in her ways. When it comes to her ways she thinks they are the “good” ways, but are they really? Even though, the grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to…

    • 1150 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, a family of four decides to go on a vacation joined by the grandmother. The family decides to take a road trip to Florida, but the grandmother shows the family the newspaper with the headlines stating there are three loose criminals also going there. The criminals are led by one who calls himself “the Misfit.” The vacation to Florida continues despite the grandmother’s disagreement and plea to go to Tennessee to see an old house the grandmother remembers from her childhood. As the family begins their vacation, the grandmother asks her son Bailey if he can bring her cat, a question Bailey quickly rejects.…

    • 1139 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Do you find yourself shocked or frustrated right at the end of a good book? Do you end up scratching your head and wonder what just happened? That’s because good writers know how to persuade readers to think a certain way, like the most logic or obvious choice, and add a twist that will leave you saying, “I didn’t see that coming!” After going back and rereading you see hidden clues that lead up to the final conclusion. This is known as “breadcrumbs.” Great author’s love throwing breadcrumbs into their story to show that things aren’t exactly as they appear. One example of a great plot twist is “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’ Connor. When reading, you think it’s about a family vacation gone wrong. The story has many laugh-out-loud humor that we all can relate when it comes to vacations. Rotten little bother’s and sister’s, granny who gets what she wants, dad who is in charge, and mother who is just along for the ride. Then the ending happens. The story takes a dramatic turn from all the humor to…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Have values really change over the years? In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” values are really portrayed as being a thing in the past. Values such as family values and people values are really important and O’Connor really tries to get her point across by using the character from the family to show how they have lost respect towards each other and other people as well. The worst thing is that the characters don’t even realize how they act with each is actually wrong and don’t seem to do anything about it because of the lack of discipline.…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Throughout literature there is a theme that seems to be constant, the protagonist against the antagonist, good versus evil. It is a theme that reoccurs throughout time because it provides the audience with an interesting conflict and reveals more about the true nature of humans. In Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” she exposes her audience to the veracity of human nature; through various rhetorical devices and the demeanor of her characters, O’Connor reveals a new perspective on good versus evil.…

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short story I decided to do my paper over was A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor. This story is about a family that is made up of a grandma, mom, dad, son, daughter. The story starts withe the family is getting ready to go on a family trip to florida but the grandma does not want to go to florida she wants to go to tennessee to see her friends. The dad who is the grandmas son says that would unfair to the rest of the family so the grandma says fine and they hed toward florida. On the way they stop at Red Sammy’s Barbeque restaurant to get something to eat then they continue on. On the way to florid after the stoped for food the grandma says she remebers this very nice house that she wants to goes see she says the house is right off the raod they were on she made the house sound so awsome that the kids want to see the house to so the dad said the would go see the house. When the road is very bumpy and they get into crase which makes the grandma remeber that the house was not in georgia but in tennessee. After the crase three men show up carrying gun the grandma reckonizes one of the men as the Misfit who was a killer one by one the muder the family the grandma being last.…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics