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A Good Man Is Hard To Find Identity Essay

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Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” deals with the flawed moral conduct of a presumed religious figure and a criminal. The Grandmother, who is the protagonist in this story and The Misfit, who is the criminal, are heavily influenced by their environment. Both of these characters show the relationship between environment and identity. O’Connor’s inspiration for this story is rooted in her deeply religious, Catholic beliefs. The author brings the reader down a road which questions if having religious beliefs makes a good person. The two main characters of this short story, are brought together by a life altering accident due to a detour during a family trip. Religious beliefs become the focal point that each of these character’s struggles with during a chaotic event that ultimately results in death. As …show more content…

When the family arrives at The Tower, The Grandmother has a conversation with the restaurant owner, Red Sammy. In this conversation The Grandmother says that she does not trust anyone in the world in the quote, “it isn’t a soul in this green world of God’s that you can trust” (474). Red Sammy also agrees that there is no one to trust. The Grandmother continues by blaming Europe for the way things were at that time. By her snide comments about African Americans and her blaming of Europe in her conversation with Red Sammy, she is reflecting how prejudice her own identity is. In contrast, her interaction with The Misfit affects her identity. In an effort to stay alive, The Grandmother perceives her faith as a Christian and attempts to save The Misfit’s soul. She is attempting to not discriminate against The Misfit, despite what he had done to other people, and because of her beliefs. However, this contradicts The Grandmother’s overall identity as racist and prejudice. Whereas God does not discriminate, The Grandmother does discriminate against His

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The uncertainty that the characters had with one another is a proceeding topic all through O'Connor's short stories, and in her discourse with Red Sammy, the grandmother avows her trust in this idea: "It isn't a soul in this green universe of God's that you can trust. " This conviction denies her Christian confidence. O’Connor’s Christian certainty achieves the achievement of Grace. As she comprehends what’s going on, the grandmother starts to implore that the Misfit pray so that bad situations won’t happen in the future as well as Jesus saving him through his pain. Before the Misfit executes her, the grandmother told him that she considers him as one of her own children, recollecting that the Misfit is as a related human prepared for being saved by God's grace.

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Flannery O’Connor was a diligent Catholic author and a Georgia resident. She wrote Southern Gothic Literature, which is written works of literature in the South part of America during the mid-20th century. This type of literature consisted of morbid, disturbing or fantastic characters and circumstances in the stories. O’Connor relied on her religious beliefs and regional experiences as a source of inspiration for all her stories. In the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, a family is taking a vacation to Florida, but the real journey takes place inside the family 's lives.

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In this moment, the grandmother realizes that she has a commonality with the Misfit, and that they both truly do have some good in them. Her observation that his face was momentarily like hers causes her to see the emotion that the Misfit is experiencing, and she makes the connection between his emotion and hers. She finally is transformed by this realization and her own actions of kindness, as she died and “her face [smiled] up at the cloudless sky” (212). The goodness that the grandmother had been seeking throughout the entire story had at last been realized through her own actions of kindness toward the Misfit, who was also momentarily affected and taken back by her grace towards

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The short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is revolved around many distortions that the author O’Connor creates to build meaning within the story. The novel presents characters that are characterized through many different symbols that result in an uncanny feeling for the reader. O’Connor’s “place” is the distortion in the story that causes conflict, creating the uncanny feeling in the story. O’Connor’s “place” also represents a different variety of symbols, creating the necessary meaning of the psychological realism. O’Connor utilizes distortion to create meaning in the story within her characters who represent the conflicts within the Catholic Church and dramatizes it with a complicated sense of humor.

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Through the violence of her short story, Flannery O’ Conner depicts grace and salvation. Flannery O’Conner was a southern rooted writer deeply connected to her Roman Catholic faith and with the use of spiritually conflicted characters she depicted human mortality and the flaws of humanity in her short story, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” In this story, O’Connor shares her views of mankind as creatures who have fallen from God’s grace and their journey to rediscover it. The characters in the story face an abrupt dissent into violence. The story is by design meant to shock the reader out of spiritual displacement leaving them to debate the classic Christian mysteries; good versus evil and God’s Grace.

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From beginning that she is introduced to the final breath she takes, she only considers her own ego. She causes the collision by bringing the cat in the car and thus allows the family to be caught by the misfit. During her encounter with the misfit she only begs mercy for her own life. It is not until the gunfire sounds in the woods that she calls for Baily. With the final moments of the grandmother’s life she recites many times of Jesus and the power that prayer can bring to misfit’s life.

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In today’s world the struggle to find your true identity can be a challenging task. With a world that’s more connected than ever many struggle to be their true self, rather than a lousy image of someone they wish to be. After reading the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor the truth to this identity crisis could not be seen more clearly. O’Connor intended the audience of the story to be those who struggle to find their identity, forcing the reader to rethink whether they themselves struggle with their identity. By looking at the the way I interpret the story, the way the author’s intended audience is to interpret the story, and how I differ from that intended audience, the reasoning to why some struggle with finding their

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Redemption is the act of being saved from acts of evil and sin. The debate of whether human nature is redeemable or not has been one to plaque religious scholars. In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, this question continues in the interactions between the characters; the most notable being the Grandmother of a rather horrible family and the Misfit, a murderer. While on a road trip, these two characters’ paths collide and lead to a rather unfortunate end where the Grandmother and her family are killed. While many readers believe the ending creates and overall negative tone of the story, some believe that there is a hope for redemption; the story’s author O’Connor who is a devoted Catholic included.

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In her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor introduces the reader to a world of family issues, danger, and murder. The story was written in 1955 during a period of social and racial unrest in the southern United States. Mostly, the story follows O 'Connor 's basic Southern Gothic writing style. A work that is "cold and dispassionate, as well as almost absurdly stark and violent" (Galloway). While the quote gives major insight into the theme of the story, it does not offer a glimpse into O 'Connor 's real message of the story.

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In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor creates a story where the roles of good and evil blend together. In the short story, a family in the rural South gets caught up with a criminal named the Misfit after their wreck and they end up getting murdered. The clash between the grandmother and the Misfit highlights the religious aspects of the story and also O’Connor’s beliefs. Her stylistic traits of violence, distortion, and religion are used to convey a corrupt world that needs salvation. O’Connor’s trait of violence is used throughout to reveal the corrupt and criminal world that emanates the need for salvation.

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The grandmother grew in that moment of death more than she ever did in the little parts that we read about her life, and she dies in peace. Her actions may have even changed the Misfit too. At the end, he says “she would have been a good woman if he 'd been there all her life to shoot her.” (366). This line confused me the first time reading it, but the second time around it made more sense.

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