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A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

810 Words4 Pages

The Humanization of a Killer
The grandmother portrays a good, religious woman, but in reality, she is just as bad as the person who kills her family. Throughout the novel, a family is on a trip to Florida, but a killer just escapes prison and is also going to Florida. On the drive down, the grandmother wants to show her family a plantation in Georgia, but she realizes that the plantation is in Tennessee, not Georgia. Their car crashes on a dirt road after the driver, the grandmother’s son, gets distracted. The Misfit, the killer, and his minions see the crash and go over to the family. The grandmother recognizes the killer and tries to save herself which causes the Misfit to kill her and her entire family. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” …show more content…

The grandmother wants to convince the killer he is an acceptable person: “You shouldn’t call yourself the Misfit because I know you're a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell” (O’Connor). The grandmother feels that she knows the Misfit is a righteous person by the way he looks, but he is a killer and not a good person. The grandmother's sins are her selfishness and pride. The Misfit has a lot of sins including killing numerous different people: “The Misfit is troubled by the evil in the world even though he is a contributor. He more likely represents one more troubled soul on earth that lacks religion” (Bouchard 83). The Misfit is not a good person and needs saving. Even though the grandmother cares about her religion, she will do anything to keep herself alive even through sins. The grandmother commits sins throughout the story, and one of her sins is …show more content…

Like many others, the grandmother wants to survive. She uses the wrong method of trying to save herself: “I just know you’re a good man” (O’Connor). She wants to persuade the killer not to kill her. As the grandmother tries to assure the killer that he’s an upright person: “One of the men takes Bailey and two of the children into the woods, and the grandmother tries to convince the Misfit that he is a good person” (Smith 205). The grandmother wants to live, so she wants the Misfit to think he isn’t the person he thinks he is. She wants him to pray, so he can understand he is an upright person. The grandmother tries to convince the killer that he is an upstanding man; she humanizes him into thinking what she wants him to think. Even though the grandmother dies, she still uses her skills to try to stay

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So, when reading the story initially I was left with the impression that The Misfit was least sympathetic because he just killed an entire family forcing the grandmother to come to terms with their death before killing her off. As blunt and brutal as this situation is, it is also the most symbolic as the true villain of Poe's story is actually the grandmother. For instance, the grandmother constantly insists that The Misfit must be a good man, "I know you're a good man" (O' Connor 504) and "I just know you're a good man" (O'Connor 505). Moreover, instances of the grandmother claiming that if The Misfit pray, Jesus will guide him, while she herself never does it and simply goes on to say in a cursing manner, "Jesus, Jesus" (O'Connor 507) insinuating The Misfit needs the saving. O'Connor cleverly implies this as the grandmother being sympathizing with his past, all the while her tone is almost becoming forcing, as a means of psychological attack.

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Although it may seem like the grandmother is helping the family by trying to convince The Misfit that he is a good man, she is only doing it for “purely selfish reasons” (Mitchell). She has no reaction and is cold-hearted when her family members are murdered. Another reason why she is selfish is because of how she believes that she deserves special treatment because she is a “lady”. In the beginning of the story, O’Connor makes it a point to illustrate how lady-like the grandmother is dressed compared to the mother by stating that anyone who saw her “would know at once that she was a lady” (617). The grandmother wants to make it clear that she is a lady and has expectations to be treated like royalty solely because of her

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