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A Good Man Is Hard To Find Analysis

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Flannery O’Conner is well known for her Southern Gothic writing, most of the stories that she has written are found to gravitate around an average self-satisfied protagonist who’s in for a life-threatening wake up call. In this story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the protagonist is represented by the Grandmother. All the “good” characters in her stories are found to be lost and can’t seem to see outside of their own worlds, if it doesn’t concern them, it’s out of sight out of mind to them. That is until evil, the Misfit, steps into the picture unexpectedly and gives the character’s a slap in the face with reality. O’Conner’s story then takes a turn towards her second theme in the story, religion and how good and evil both view God and or Jesus. By the end of the story both the good and evil characters see each other’s …show more content…

Initially the Grandmother out of fear for her life tries to appeal to the Misfits better nature. “You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! (Line 132)”. Only then does the Misfit see the Grandmother’s vulnerability in attempt to persuade him to pray, in hope’s the good will rise to the surface from deep within him. She is then respectfully turned down as the Misfit explains his side of God. “He thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can” (Line 122). Honestly admitting that he does know of the good deep within him but that he has long ago accepted the evil inside he believes and sees himself as an evil murder. Feeling as if she has made a deep connection with the Misfit, the Grandmother tries to reach out a hand with optimism to steer him away from his dark path. Only to meet her

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Analysis Of The Grandmother In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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When we look at the grandmother in the story, we see many traits of which cause problems and precarious situations. The grandmother when looked at closely is the main reason that all the problems in the story happened. In the beginning of the story she displays a stubborn attitude and shows a spirit of independency; maybe too much. She carefully sneaks her cat into the car, and later down the road the cat sneaks out, jumps on the drivers face, and causes them to have a wreck. As seen in the article “A Good Man is Hard To Find” it states “The grandmother never turns her critical eye on herself to inspect her own hypocrisy, dishonesty, and selfishness.

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Compare And Contrast Good Man Is Hard To Find

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In a "Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O 'Connor, the contrast of good and evil is not as evident as it appears on the surface. The road that the family in the story travels symbolizes good up until the point the grandmother all but forces the family to make a detour onto a dirt road that leads to their demise. She is the unlikely antagonist in the story. A serial killer named, The Misfit, is the protagonist despite his homicidal actions. Both characters in the story help to illustrate how a relationship with God is perceived good and sacrilegious behavior is perceived evil.

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How Does Flannery O Connor Show The Mentality Of The Weather

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Learning the Misfit’s belief, we can understand why he does the things he does. He questions the existence of Jesus and how He “thown everything off balance” (O’Connor 45). The Misfit simply states that if He was real, then drop everything and blindly follow. If he was not, enjoy what we can in this life. Grandma has a moment of realization and connects with him.

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Summary Of A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

397 Words | 2 Pages

As a result of her actions, the grandmother is ultimately responsible for the family’s death at the hands of the Misfit and his associates. Even with this knowledge, the grandmother questioned the Misfit “you wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?” During this conversation, she has a moment of clarity where she recognizes the Misfit as a child of her own and reaches out to touch him, which results in her death on earth and rebirth in everlasting life with Christ (Keil, 2006).

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Redemption In Flannery O Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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Redemption is the act of being saved from acts of evil and sin. The debate of whether human nature is redeemable or not has been one to plaque religious scholars. In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, this question continues in the interactions between the characters; the most notable being the Grandmother of a rather horrible family and the Misfit, a murderer. While on a road trip, these two characters’ paths collide and lead to a rather unfortunate end where the Grandmother and her family are killed. While many readers believe the ending creates and overall negative tone of the story, some believe that there is a hope for redemption; the story’s author O’Connor who is a devoted Catholic included.

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Literary Analysis: Flannery O Connor

1068 Words | 5 Pages

In the story, the grandmother is promptly filled with practically otherworldly love and comprehension that are from God. She treats The Misfit as a kindred enduring person whom she is committed to love because of that moment of grace that God gives her at a sudden. (Every individual should have compassion to others and love his kindred people like himself, even his foes. As Jesus instructs all of us to. )

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A Good Man Is Hard To Find Misfit Character Analysis

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The Grandmother is the only member of the family still alive at this point. The misfit holds the grandmother at gunpoint. The grandmother uses faith as a way to escape death and pleads for the character to spare her life. “Pray!” The grandmother pleads pathetically.

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1601 Words | 7 Pages

The grandmother uses Jesus as a scapegoat to show how she is a child of God while the Misfit tells of how he really perceives Jesus and that there is no justification of his actions. In the event of the car accident, the Grandmother was left with a physical crisis that quickly showed as her family was sent off into the woods to be killed one by one. This soon transitioned to a spiritual crisis both between the Grandmother and the Misfit as she uses Jesus's name to try and escape her fate. This spiritual crisis leads the characters to express their personal conception of reality and how they perceive the revelation of the situation that they are in. The Grandmother has a sense that reality should revolve around her and that she should manipulate tools such as religion to benefit her outcome.

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Another way that the two readings are related is that "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" incorporates the idea of leaving things up for interpretation. The big questions that come to mind, is why did the Misfit not kill the grandma right away? Why did the grandma plead with the Misfit about how prayer would solve everything? Why did the Misfit not know why he went to jail?

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Manipulation In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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She is only trying to convince the misfit that he is a good man because she wants to be freed, and her life is in shambles. Also, the grandmother has already gone back on her word multiple of times, calling the misfit a big, bad, and scary man. Now all of the sudden he is a good man. Therefore, the grandmother still has not changed a

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A Good Man Is Hard To Find Theme

1583 Words | 7 Pages

The setting In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” is in the south, near or around Florida. The Grandmother shows to be a religious woman who uses her religion as hope to get out of the situation she placed herself in. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor writes, “ ‘If you would pray,’ the old lady said, ‘Jesus will help you.’ ‘That’s right,’ The Misfit said ‘Well them, why don’t you pray?’ she asked trembling with delight suddenly.

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A Good Man Is Hard To Find Conflict Essay

1645 Words | 7 Pages

He thought how peaceful she looked lying there on the ground with her arms wide open alongside her. She lay there with an angelic and peaceful smile. The Misfit pondered over the things grandma said. He felt something it was what she said to him that made him question the things he did and why he done wrong. What made him so angry and why his life turned out like it did.

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A Good Man Is Hard To Find Essay

1802 Words | 8 Pages

She has made a decision based off her own desires, and it has put her as well as her family in a predicament. After making this wrong decision, the grandmother has absolutely no power. It is also here that the grandmother and her family come in contact with the Misfit. The Misfit is an escaped murderer who the family had heard about being on the loose prior to leaving on their trip. Although he is accompanied by two other men, the Misfit is a man who acts on his own independent values; we see this very clearly in his name.

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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

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Good Man Is Hard To Find Response

1016 Words | 5 Pages

In her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor introduces the reader to a world of family issues, danger, and murder. The story was written in 1955 during a period of social and racial unrest in the southern United States. Mostly, the story follows O 'Connor 's basic Southern Gothic writing style. A work that is "cold and dispassionate, as well as almost absurdly stark and violent" (Galloway). While the quote gives major insight into the theme of the story, it does not offer a glimpse into O 'Connor 's real message of the story.

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