ipl-logo

A Good Man Is Hard To Find Southern Gothic

1660 Words7 Pages

Flannery O’Connor’s short story A Good Man is Hard to Find, published in 1953, is a classic example of American Southern Gothic literature. Southern Gothic, as defined by the Oxford Encyclopedia is,” a mode or genre prevalent in literature from the early 19th century to this day. Characteristics of Southern Gothic include the presence of irrational, horrific, and transgressive thoughts, desires, and impulses; grotesque characters; dark humor, and an overall angst-ridden sense of alienation.” O’Connor’s short story exhibits the characteristics of Southern Gothic literature with a simple family road trip, until the trip suddenly goes awry and the family meets an escaped convict and the family is killed one by one. The horrific event, setting, …show more content…

The Misfit talks about how he first began down this road of crime and how he really can not remember what he exactly did to be punished. The Misfit points out that for this act that he can not remember, his world was forever changed, and he was never awarded forgiveness. The reasoning as to why the Misfit calls himself the “Misfit” also supports his belief of punishment. The Misfit says, “I call myself The Misfit, .... because I can’t make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment.” (In-text citation needed) What the Misfit is saying is that he does not understand why he has been punish so severely for his actions. The grandmother is the cause of the death of her entire family when she blurts out that she recognizes and knows who the Misfit is. The grandmother and the Misfit differ their reactions to the punishments that have been dealt in their lives. The Misfit believes that he is unforgivable and that there is nothing that he can do to change who he is. The grandmother on the other hand has a moment of grace and forgives the Misfit for the killing of her family. This surprises the Misfit due to his belief that he is unforgivable for the actions that he has committed and leads to the Misfit contemplating his prior belief and possibly changing him in the

Show More
Related

Flannery O Connor A Good Man Is Hard To Find Symbolism

969 Words | 4 Pages

Regardless of the way that he executes her, the Misfit is proposed to have achieved some level of grace as well when he says at the end of the story, "It's no honest to goodness bliss throughout everyday life." Earlier in the story, he declared the main delight out of life was

Read More

A Good Man Is Hard To Find Misfit Character Analysis

581 Words | 3 Pages

There is something which occurred in his childhood that triggered the Misfit to want to commit these violence. The Misfits name plays a significant role in the story. This character feels out of place in the world and different from everyone else. There is an innocent gesture in the story the Misfit claims the reason for his name is because he can’t make what all he has done wrong fit the

Read More

A Good Man Is Hard To Find Irony Analysis

670 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More

Grandmother Vs Misfit

949 Words | 4 Pages

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

Read More

A Good Man Is Hard To Find Rhetorical Analysis

1870 Words | 8 Pages

With this mentality, the grandmother literally reaches out to the Misfit as if “[he was] one of [her] own children” (136). The Misfit looks so much like the grandmother’s own son that she is finally able to find it in her heart to love the man who just killed her whole family, just like Jesus would have done. The Misfit picks up on her compassion and right as she

Read More

A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

1256 Words | 6 Pages

When faced with death, “to all appearances she, like the rest of us, is not too well prepared for it. She would like to see the event postponed”, (Gunner 10). After the death of her son, Bailey, the grandmother begs The Misfit to pray for Jesus’s help. By calling The Misfit one of her own children, right before she is shot three times through the chest, she identifies him as a human capable of being saved by God’s Grace. The Misfit achieves grace when he ends the story explaining that, “It’s no real pleasure in life” to take away another’s life after previously having to have claimed the only pleasure in life being meanness (O’Conner

Read More

A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

1244 Words | 5 Pages

A Good Man Is Hard To Find, written by Flannery O’Connor is a Southern gothic short story. A Good Man Is Hard To Find is about a family from Georgia traveling to Florida for a vacation with a grandma begging every second of the way to go to Tennessee insead, but stopping for a detour near a plantation she recognizes. The theme of A Good Man Is Hard To Find toes the line of morality and redemption, leaving the clear theme of perspective as an obvious one to catch on to. A Good Man Is Hard To Find has many potential influences too, with this story being written in 1953, there are many factors that played into the inspiration for Flannery O’Connor writing of A Good Man Is Hard To Find. Analyzing A Good Man Is Hard To Find, written by Flannery

Read More

Gender Roles In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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

Read More

A Good Man Is Hard To Find Essay

930 Words | 4 Pages

The south influence Flannery O’Connor to write novels in many ways. In the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, O’ Connor point of view was the encounter grandma had with Misfit. The encounter became a life or death situation. The moment grandma embraced her Christianity was at the time of her death, which brings great triumph. This brings up a question.

Read More

Hard To Find Theme

939 Words | 4 Pages

One by one, the Misfit orders his henchmen to take a member of the family into the woods and kill them in cold blood. However, the reader is confounded when the Misfit reveals that he was falsely imprisoned for his father’s death. O’Connor states: “The Misfit sneered slightly. ‘Nobody had nothing I wanted’ he said…’It was the head doctor at the penitentiary said what I had done was kill my daddy but I know that for a lie.

Read More

Good Man Is Hard To Find Response

1016 Words | 5 Pages

The Misfit 's mind is one of the most complicated of any villain in O 'Connor’s stories and in all literature. His mental state is most evident in "the scene between the Grandmother and the Misfit at the climax of the story" (Walls 3) This recent escapee 's psyche can be described as "tails short of the athlete’s morality, for he plays by no one 's rules except his own" (Fike). This mental state is typical of most criminals but the Misfit’s perception on religion is not so conventional. Usually, when a person commits a heinous act and if the person is spiritual they will say God told them to do it.

Read More

Violence In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

1393 Words | 6 Pages

The violence that we do not get to see for ourselves are the crimes the Misfit committed before the story began. The story begins with the grandmother telling Bailey to “read here what it says he did to these people’” (O’Connor 575). These crimes are violent murders that the Misfit committed beforehand. This displays the criminal world that we live in.

Read More

The Grandmother And The Misfit's A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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

Read More

Symbolism In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

1254 Words | 6 Pages

In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” she uses writing skills such as symbolism and imagery to get across her different themes to the reader’s with plenty of room for self-interpretation. Though O’Connor’s work could be defined as cynical, she does an excellent job of writing in the third person with her uncomplicated structure of sentences leaving plenty of room for her character 's thoughts, feelings, and actions to get across the realism of our world. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is a battle between a grandmother with a rather artificial sense of goodness, and a criminal who symbolizes evil. The grandmother treats goodness as having good manners, and coming from a family of higher class, but at the end of the story comes to

Read More

Southern Gothic Elements In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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?"

Read More

More about A Good Man Is Hard To Find Southern Gothic

Related Topics

Open Document