A Good Man Is Hard To Find Rhetorical Analysis

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

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,

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