A Good Man Is Hard To Find Literary Analysis

Deemed the Southern Gothic writer of the 20th century, author Flannery O’Connor often draws her Roman Catholic roots into her literature. Her well-known short story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is about a family sextet (a grandmother, two parents, and three children) who, while on a drive to Florida, overturn their car into a ditch. Then, in attempt to get help, they flag down the vehicle of a wanted serial killer on the run who eventually murders the entire family and steals their clothing. Many critics agree that “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” has a lot of religious symbolism embedded in the characters. The protagonist of the story is a grandmother of three young children who lives with her son, Bailey; his unnamed wife; her three grandchildren, John

Although she is the narrator, she is not a well-liked character. Literary critic Kathleen G. Oschorn writes in her essay “A Cloak Of Grace: Contradictions in ‘A Good Man Is Hard To Find’”, “Throughout the story the grandmother is a full-blown element of disaster, a Geiger counter for catastrophe. Her fuzzy fantasies about a southern mansion combined with some assistance from the smuggled cat manage to cause the car wreck. Then her pronouncement ‘You’re The Misfit’ seals their fate. The few pleasures in the story involve the grandmother’s false sense of superiority. She chuckles over how a ‘n*gger boy’ ate the watermelon Mr. Teagarden (E.A.T.) had left for her when they were courting, and she wishes to paint a picture of the ‘cute little pickaninny’ she sees standing, without pants, in the doorway of a shack. Her pleasure and self-esteem increases directly in relation to the degree of superiority she manages to feel. Her limitations are so extreme that it seems impossible to imagine her thinking about anyone but herself, even for a moment.” (Oschorn 111-112) The first example of the grandmother behaving foolishly and for her own benefit is when the family is setting off for