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A Good Man Is Hard To Find Rhetorical Analysis

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In her short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Georgian humanist, Flannery O’Connor, uses irony, symbolism, and imagery to foreshadow the demise of the family upon encountering The Misfit. Founded in both Southern and Christian roots, the author created a metaphorical story about the journey of life, with a negative twist. With caustic diction that contributes to her cynical tone, O’Connor depicts the message that finding a good person is a hopeless undertaking. O’Connor instantly utilizes irony in the very beginning of her story to suggest the family’s dismal fate. The unnamed grandmother attempts to manipulate her son, Bailey, to change the vacation destination to her preference: Tennessee. She does so by rattling a newspaper article …show more content…

She exclaims, “I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn’t answers to my conscience if I did.” The reader, however, is eventually humored when the grandmother is the person that leads the entire family to the infamous criminal, and ultimately, to their death. This tactful use of irony not only adds to O’Connor’s dark comedy but also foretells what is to come. Despite the grandmother’s attempts, the vacation remains set for Florida. Staying true to her Southern belle roots, the grandmother piles into the car wearing a navy blue dress with lace, a pinned sachet of violets, along with white gloves. It is stated that,“In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would at once know that she was a lady.” O’Connor once again employs irony to foreshadow the family’s death, while amplifying her macabre humor. In a twist of fate the grandmother led herself and her family to The Misfit, …show more content…

On their way to Florida, the family passes different sceneries and landscapes, one including a plantation. “They passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island.” This symbolizes the death of the family of six: the grandmother, Bailey, the two children, the baby, and the mother. The specific count of graves mentioned catches the audience’s attention while helping to foreshadow the future events. When the family recovers from the car accident, the ditch they land in is mentioned several times. With a broken shoulder, the mother is mentioned, “sitting against the side of the red gutted ditch, holding the screaming baby.” Shortly after, the remainder of the family, excluding June Star and John Wesley, join the mother and baby in the ditch. O’Connor uses this trench to symbolize the family’s grave. The family was lost and helpless as they laid on the side of the abandoned dirt road, unable to resolve their situation. The reader can feel the despair of the stranded and defenseless family as they lay in their metaphorical

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In the short story A Good Man Is Hard to Find by F.C she illuminates on the point of Faith vs. Dought. When Grandmother was talking to the Misfit by convincing him not to kill her,but the Misfit was Grandmother 's obstacle to upholding Grandmothers strong belief,so the grandmother doubted her faith by not believing. In the illuminating moment when the grandmother fell into the ditch, it was revealed that her faith became a questionable option. The grandmother began to recognize that maybe Jesus didn’t rise from the dead like she believed.

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Flannery O’Connor is a renowned Southern author, noted for her gothic works and heavily Catholic themes. She focuses predominantly on racial tensions, morality, and divine grace. The religious and moral themes of her short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, converge on the character of the grandmother. Despite the self-proclamations of fulfilling what it means to be a Southern lady, Grandmother holds a superficial grasp of her religion. Throughout the story, the Grandmother never truly changed, only her ostensible actions did.

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and they are all planning a trip to Florida. Although it has been decided that they are going to Florida, the grandmother is frustrated and tries to convince her son and his family that they should go to Tennessee instead since more family lives there and there are sights to see there. She also argues that going to Florida would only put the family in danger as there was a serial killer on the loose who goes by the name of “Misfit”. This, in itself, already raises a red flag for readers since they just so happen to be travelling to a place where a serial killer is running loose. Despite the grandmother’s protests against their trip to Florida, they all get in the car and begin their journey.

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The reader is informed of a possible threat that could happen after Grandma brings up information about a prison escape. “Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is loose from the Federal Pen and headed towards Florida” (242). O’Connor, hints that there could be a negative outcome, despite the beginning of the story starting out positive. The reader can then conclude that Grandma is a bit off, brushing aside the possibility of such an encounter especially in that time period. While driving, we get to know a bit more of the characters and their personalities as well as slapstick comedic comments when observing the South during the 1950s.

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Flannery O’Connor uses style, tone, and character to tell the story of a family and a band of misfits as they struggle with good over evil in the Southern Gothic short story ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012). The style and tone of the characters are depicted in a way that makes it difficult to feel compassion or sympathy for them. The figurative language and style used by the author depicts characters with casual, informal, and extreme Southern stereotypes, diction and attitudes. The tone of the story is ironic in regard to both the characters and plot. O’Connor uses colorful language to describe the characters of the story in a way that allows the reader to vividly see the characters as cartoon like, grotesque, and exaggerated.

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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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The story opens with a man named Bailey who is going on a trip with his family to Florida. However, his mother had other plans and becomes the "manipulative grandmother lecturing her apathetic son" (Sparrow). At first she tries to convince her son to change the trip destination saying ""(O 'Connor). It might be inferred that she meant well by warning Bailey about the prison escapee traveling in the same direction. Unfortunately, later in the story the reader finds out that .

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In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor creates a story where the roles of good and evil blend together. In the short story, a family in the rural South gets caught up with a criminal named the Misfit after their wreck and they end up getting murdered. The clash between the grandmother and the Misfit highlights the religious aspects of the story and also O’Connor’s beliefs. Her stylistic traits of violence, distortion, and religion are used to convey a corrupt world that needs salvation. O’Connor’s trait of violence is used throughout to reveal the corrupt and criminal world that emanates the need for salvation.

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