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A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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“A Good Man is Hard to Find” is one of the short story written by Flannery O’Connor. The story opens as a man named Bailey wants to take his family (his wife, a baby, and two kids, John Wesley and June Star) for a vacation to Florida but the grandmother (bailey’s mother) wants to go to east Tennessee instead of Florida to visit some of her connections. She tries to persuade her son to change his mind using the news of escape of the Misfit, a prisoner who has escaped from the prison and headed to Florida. Bailey does not take her seriously as he understand her motives and he refuses to go to Tennessee. The next morning, the grandmother gets ready in her best outfit and secretly brings her cat, Pitty Sing. They start their journey from Georgia to Florida. During the trip the kids play games and the grandmother tells stories to the kids. They stop at the Tower …show more content…

The author describes the car as “a big black battered hearse like automobile” (hearse like means the vehicle which carries coffin) that foreshadows the car is bringer the death or the horrible ending of the family. When the grandmother says “you would not shoot a lady, would you?”(382) the Misfit pointed the toe of his shoes into the ground and made a little hole and then covered it up again and said “I would hate to have to.” It symbolizes as if he is preparing to dig a grave and bury her in it. The grandmother realizes this and she starts to pray. Further, when the grandmother asks the Misfit, “what did you do to get sent up to the penitentiary that first time?” The Misfit replies, “Turn to the right, it was a wall. Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling, look down it was a floor. I forget what I done, lady.” Although he was explaining about the jail, the description implies of a small, tight grave exactly what kind of punishment the grandmother is going to

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The grandmother can be characterized as a misfit in the story because she originally wants to go to Tennessee but the rest of the family wants to go to Florida. This shows you that she is the only one that doesn’t conform to everyone else’s opinion. She tries to convince everyone about the serial killer going around named “The Misfit” and how they might encounter it, but they choose to ignore her, this also foreshadows the events to come. Even though she didn’t want to go to Florida she doesn’t want to stay home, and also trying to convince her son’s kids but they just end up making fun of her.

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William Martin Professor English 15 April 2017 A Good Man Is Hard To Find: What Is “Good”? In this work by Mary Flannery O’Connor, the protagonist, referred to as “the grandmother,” tries to persuade her son to take the family to East Tennessee. Her son, Bailey, wants to visit Florida instead and so she tries to change his mind.

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The Grandmother is the only member of the family still alive at this point. The misfit holds the grandmother at gunpoint. The grandmother uses faith as a way to escape death and pleads for the character to spare her life. “Pray!” The grandmother pleads pathetically.

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The grandmother would like to go to Tennessee to visit some of her old connections. Religion is another theme that the author uses in the story. The grandmother joins in conversation with the “Misfit” who is a serial killer. She convinces the misfit not to kill her by speaking

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In the 1953 short story titled “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, readers are given a glimpse of what the end of the story may look like through use of foreshadowing, symbolism, and other literary techniques. Although the story looks to be an innocent story of a family who travels to Florida for vacation at the start of it, readers soon find out that the story has a darker twist to it. This family trip turns violent and this gruesome ending can easily represent the violence taking place in America during the time this story was written by O’Connor and even today. The short story starts off with a family of six- parents, a grandmother, and three children-

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In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O'Connor's explains in vivid details, a corrupt, unfortunate turn of events resulting in the gruesome death of a young family. This unexpected tragedy astonished readers because the plot was simple yet fascinating. It is easily recognizable hat every word and literary element installed in this story has a purpose behind its placement. O’Connor uses literary elements such as foreshadowing of the family’s fate, dramatic irony, and Biblical allusions to develop a well-planned, beautiful short story.     Considered to be one of the best short story writers, Flannery O’Connor uses her life experiences to seamlessly blend fiction with reality.

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“A Good Man is Hard to find”, was one of Ms. Flannery O’Connor’s well known story that shows what she is known for in her writing : violence, well thought characters with humor, and shows her Roman Catholic faith. Throughout the story, there are certain details that make the story what it seems to be than what Ms. O’Connor had to portray. Although it would be seen as a shocking violent murder plot all in one, there can be another side to the story as well. In the story of A Good Man is Hard to Find shows that people would think O’Connor was mocking religion, in actuality she was not. The characters in the story are used to expose the idea between good and evil and hypocrisy.

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The setting In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” is in the south, near or around Florida. The Grandmother shows to be a religious woman who uses her religion as hope to get out of the situation she placed herself in. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor writes, “ ‘If you would pray,’ the old lady said, ‘Jesus will help you.’ ‘That’s right,’ The Misfit said ‘Well them, why don’t you pray?’ she asked trembling with delight suddenly.

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The short story “A Good Man Is Hard To find” by Flannery O’Conner, was published in 1955. It was written in third person limited point of view. The story takes place in the 1940s after world two, family takes a road trip traveling to Florida, but their journey takes an unsuspecting turn. O’Conner uses foreshadowing, verbal and situational irony and symbolism that illustrates the theme of the effect of the selfishness of the grandmother upon the family. The first character introduced in the story is the protagonist, the unnamed grandmother.

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One of O’Conner acclaimed work is “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” A family plans a vacation to Florida, but the Grandmother suggests to go to Tennessee, the place she grew up, instead because a serial killer, The Misfit, is in the loose headed to Florida. The family dismisses the Grandmother attempt and embark on a trip to Florida. The Grandmother, using her cunning ability, convinces the family to take a detour to visit an old house "with treasure". The family listens and heads toward the old house.

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The story gives way of foreshadowing the unfortunate ending in several instances. The first one is when Grandmother Bailey is trying to change the destination of the trip by showing her son the newspaper article about the man that escaped from the penitentiary. "Here this that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it”

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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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The grandmother uses Jesus as a scapegoat to show how she is a child of God while the Misfit tells of how he really perceives Jesus and that there is no justification of his actions. In the event of the car accident, the Grandmother was left with a physical crisis that quickly showed as her family was sent off into the woods to be killed one by one. This soon transitioned to a spiritual crisis both between the Grandmother and the Misfit as she uses Jesus's name to try and escape her fate. This spiritual crisis leads the characters to express their personal conception of reality and how they perceive the revelation of the situation that they are in. The Grandmother has a sense that reality should revolve around her and that she should manipulate tools such as religion to benefit her outcome.

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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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