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A Good Man Is Hard To Find Essay

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The roles and motives of men and women in society are often extremely difficult to define, however in her book of short stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find” Flannery O’Connor uses intricate symbolism and captivating characters to make these distinctions. Written in the early 1950’s these short stories use characters that are rather out of the ordinary, yet all of them are easy to conjure in the mind, and for that reason they seem quite real. O’Connor uses these odd characters to communicate independence and helplessness and further portray power dynamics between men and women in greater society. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find,” "The Life You Save May be Your Own,” and "Good Country People,” she uses characters that are seemingly out of the …show more content…

She has made a decision based off her own desires, and it has put her as well as her family in a predicament. After making this wrong decision, the grandmother has absolutely no power. It is also here that the grandmother and her family come in contact with the Misfit. The Misfit is an escaped murderer who the family had heard about being on the loose prior to leaving on their trip. Although he is accompanied by two other men, the Misfit is a man who acts on his own independent values; we see this very clearly in his name. A misfit is defined in the dictionary someone who whose behavior sets them apart from others in an obvious way. He is clearly a man who does not fit in, as he is a criminal. This idea of setting yourself apart from others and being a strong independent person is one commonly attributed to masculinity. The Misfit and his accomplices arrive on the scene of the crash and take the children and parents into the woods, leaving the grandmother alone with the Misfit. The narrator shows the grandmother’s helplessness on page 20, stating “Alone with the Misfit, the grandmother had lost her voice”. To have no voice in this situation symbolizes a lack of

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Due to their similar attributes, the grandmother and Misfit are not drastically different. Neither the grandmother nor the Misfit are purely good or evil; however, they do represent a general reputation of good and evil, respectively. Upon closer inspection, however, there is one fundamental difference between the two characters’ personalities: admission of wrongdoing. This is such a significant distinction that some critics argue that the Misfit’s character is not as corrupted as the grandmother’s because “the Misfit openly acknowledges his evil,” compared to the grandmother’s façade (Desmond). Due to this, the grandmother is not able to connect with the Misfit because she is hiding behind of a false appearance.

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Since being a lady is a big part of what the grandmother considers moral, the Misfit obviously doesn’t abide by the same moral code of ethics as she does. She desperately calls him a good man, as though appealing to some value deep within that he couldn’t deny. Her definition of “good” is skewed though, resting on her belief that the Misfit isn’t like most people. The grandmother’s application of the label “good” shows that it does not mean “kind” or “moral”. “Good” simply means whatever ideals align with hers.

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Suddenly, the grandmother recognizes one of the men as the Misfit. The grandmother began telling the Misfit “I know you must come from nice people” (O’Connor 304). She expressed her ideas that the Misfit was good, as long as, she got out alive. Not knowing what was about to happen, the audience can peace out a hidden message in the text which revealed a change with the grandmother. “The Grandmother reached up to adjust her hat… but it came

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From what the reader observes from the story, one can see that The Misfit is a man with a strong moral code, however, it is one that is seen as entirely backwards in a modern society. Within the story, The Misfit states that “[T]he crime don't matter”

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581 Words | 3 Pages

The Misfit claims he was convicted of a crime that was not committed and buried alive in prison for killing his father. Being made to suffer for a crime which was not committed does not seem fair to this character.. The Misfit quotes on page 509,” I never was a bad boy that I remember of...” The Misfit is not actually a bad person he may have been sexually abused in prison or experienced some form of domestic violence as a child. The story describes the character as a man, why then does he refer to himself as a boy?

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The Misfit knows who he is and does not pretend to be otherwise, unlike the old lady. With a show of unpretentiousness, he clearly states, “Nome, I ain’t a good man” (O’Connor 427). In the end, the antagonist enlightens the Grandmother with his brutal honesty, and her “head cleared for an instance” (O’Connor 430). In the final moments of her life, she is able to drop all pretenses and view evil in the form of the Misfit as something she can accept within herself by exclaiming, “Why you’re one of my babies” (O’Connor 430). Ironically, at the moment she reaches out to him, he kills her.

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The Misfit deflects blame from himself and refuses to accept the consequences of his actions. On the other hand, the grandmother constantly claims to be a “lady” though she is evidently not the so-called lady that is pictured within the society based on her actions and attitude, and it does not help to be entirely to blame for the so-called murder of her family. To continue with this crazy roller coaster rides within these characters, whenever the misfit comes along she begs for her life but never asks The Misfit to spare her family 's lives. In fact, the grandmother does not even recognize that The Misfit has taken her son’s shirt after killing him. Staying with the theme of hypocrisy, this is another great example that follows the grandmother’s previous agreement with “A good man is hard to find” (pg.411) because she is all about herself and only worried about her and a good man would not do that they would worry about his family and she states this to try and spare her life like it says above to try and manipulate the misfit so she can live but he did not want to be saved so he did what was right in his

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The Misfit is portrayed to the grandmother as an erratic criminal a loose and seeking new victims. The grandmother‘s initial instinct is to fear this individual and she even claims, “I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal a loose in it” (1285). She assumes his morals are corrupt and presumably labels him as a predator. Later in the story, we quickly see an allusive shift in the grandmother’s beliefs at the arrival of The Misfit. The importance of their conversation is centralized around the religious factor that allows readers to confer The Misfit is not as we expect.

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(O’Connor 417). In society, The Misfit is considered a criminal and a deviant, while the Grandmother would be perceived as an innocent, old woman. When looking at both of the characters actions one might say that The Misfit is more morally wrong than the Grandmother because he kills her in the end, however, the Grandmother is consistently manipulative and self-serving to the point of indirectly killing her family.

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Finally, the grandmother and The Misfit mirror each other in their personalities and it shows that they are controlling. The grandmother who is the oldest of the family control nature which makes her be odious or annoying to the children and The Misfit, but she is also not a criminal like The Misfit. The Misfit, on the other hand, control nature that makes him a criminal and a monster to go against his religion beliefs and his faith. He said, “"if I had of been there I would have known and I wouldn't be like I am now" (O’Connor 13). As the grandmother kept pushing The Misfit to do the right thing it causes him to go darker pacts and make him murder a whole family without any regret.

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The family stops for lunch at “The Tower and meets a character called Red Sammie Butts. This is where the grandmother strikes up a conversation with him. They talk about how it was back in the olden days when there were good people and Red Sammy states, “A good man is hard to find,” (Lawrence 410). The Misfit is the second major character in the story after the grandmother. The Misfit is an escaped criminal who comes in contact with the grandmother and her family when they get into an accident on the road.

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1208 Words | 5 Pages

Viewing The Misfit as a tragic figure, we sympathize with his actions and feel remorse for who he has become. The readers see him as a victim and sympathize for his actions, including killing the elderly Grandmother. Although he is an awful person, because he is a male character, it is acceptable for him to have issues, but it is not acceptable for a woman to have any sort of issue. As the Misfits says, “She would have been a good woman...if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” (O’Connor), this suggests that the Grandmother was an awfully annoying woman, but if she had a man there to keep her in line, she would have been a decent

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1115 Words | 5 Pages

The grandmother’s plea for her life and intention to make the Misfit (the murderer within the story) think otherwise of himself represents the true value we hold our lives to. I believe that the Misfit represents a good man blinded by bad intentions. (Back up thesis) This may aswell be true considering a good man as repeated within the story is indeed hard to find. The Misfit’s confession after killing the grandmother makes me think that he was not all consumed by the evil of this world but willingly took up this lifestyle.

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1601 Words | 7 Pages

The Misfit is seen as being a part of reality and only believing what he sees with physical evidence. He also stays true to his morals of what he believes is right and wrong, especially when it comes to showing the equality of no mercy among the family members. Both characters reveal their use of Jesus, the spiritual battle that inhibits them and their concepts of reality. All of this gives insight to how there are no good or bad characters at the finale of this story. The battle of morality between the two characters only shows the

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844 Words | 4 Pages

The misfit gains awareness of human morals when he kills the grandmother and he says, "She would have been a good woman...if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life" (O 'Connor 1020), he then realized that she wasn 't all that good. O 'Connor did a good job of interpreting the grandmother as a way to put away the values of the old Southern America; she also interprets the Misfit as a type of common man who is defiantly not perfect which can a realistic version of the new Southern America. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find", the irritating grandmother cares more about matters such as her appearance and manners, she dressed her best for the car ride and the reason for her doing this is so that "In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would at once know that she was a lady." (O 'Connor 1010). The grandmother is a very selfish woman, the first thing she said to the Misfit is "You wouldn 't shoot a lady, would you?"

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