A Good Man Is Hard To Find Analysis

In the short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the author, Flannery O 'Connor, demonstrates how a short story can contain many aspects of feminism without one even noticing. Looking at the short story through a feminist point of view, one can quickly gather that O’Connor uses the old school gender roles from the very beginning of the short story.
As reading the title, it automatically suggests the male characters in this short story are untrustworthy, not prevalent, and dangerous. With that being said, the female characters in this story are viewed in the eyes of how a woman should act. With the title stating that a good man is hard to find, it reinforces the idea that women need a man in their lives. In a sense, women are helpless without a man in their lives and can only survive with the help of a good man.

The little boy, John Wesley, has no problem with disrespecting women such as his grandmother. He says, “If you don 't want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home?” (O’Connor). Though John Wesley is yet to become a man, he obviously has already developed not a lick of respect for women. He obviously does not look at his Grandmother as if she is of equivalent value to him. Being the gender of a man, this sickenly gives him the supposed right to speak to women any way he pleases. John Wesley shows his classic masculine manners by replying with, “I 'd smack his face,” (O’Connor), when his Grandmother questions him on how he would respond if The Misfit ever got ahold of him. This is how the typical male figure responds, with a strong, masculine response. John Wesley 's actions don’t stop there, he shows more male behaviors while in the automobile when not letting letting his younger sister win a silly game constructed around the shapes of the clouds. Showing he’d choose fighting over playing a game and admit losing to his sister, a female. John Wesley’s disrespectful attitude towards women show, at such an early age, his gender role that men are superior to