A Good Man Is Hard To Find Analysis

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” addresses the argument of good vs. evil in a way that makes people question their own morals and actions. In the narrative, a grandmother is going on a trip to Florida with her son and his family. Throughout the story she attempts to manipulate everyone she comes across and acts as though she is above or better than others. She frequently uses the terms “good” and “common” people, categorizing people based on her own interpretation of them or their social standing. The family encounters an escaped prisoner, the Misfit, and two of his accomplices. The grandmother tries to convince him that he could be a “good” man if he would pray, so that he may spare her life. The Misfit does not believe in prayer or being saved by religion because his past experiences led him

The Misfit had been watching them and approached them when he saw the crash (O’Connor 409). When the family encountered the Misfit, the grandmother kept trying to convince him that he was a “good” man despite the fact that he was a known murderer. Nothing about the trio of men in mismatched, ill-fitting clothing carrying guns looked “good”, but the grandmother kept telling them they were good people in the hopes of them sparing her life. The grandmother sorts everyone in the story into her own interpretation of “good” and “bad”. In this case, she categorizes the Misfit as “good” because she thinks it will benefit her (O’Connor 410). However, the Misfit sees through her attempts at manipulation and sees her as the person she is, faulted, not the person she wants to be perceived as. The author of the article 'Someone To Shoot Her Every Minute Of Her Life' suggests that the Misfit shot the grandmother as a reaction to her calling him her child (Hewitt 22; O’Connor 413). Hewitt believes the Misfit was disgusted at the idea of being connected to the