Selfish people are easy to come by. Sometimes, people who act selfishly can find themselves in some unwanted situations. In A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Conner, this is presented when a family consisting of two parents, two children, and a grandmother are venturing off on a trip to Florida. When the grandmother has a sudden desire to visit an old plantation she had once been to, they find themselves in a car accident. As they see a car coming towards, they are hoping for a nice person to come help them.
Not Your Average Grandmother (A Character Analysis from “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”) The first time I read, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, I was immediately drawn to the grandmother. She reminded me of the old southern women I have run across in my own small town in Georgia: judgmental, proud, and in denial. Throughout the whole story she never once admitted she was wrong, which consequently killed her and the rest of the family.
In the story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, there is no doubt the reader should consider the grandmother a villain. Throughout the story, it is easy to assume the grandmother would eventually lead the family to some sort of downfall. The grandmother has many traits that make her a villain, and through her judgemental nature, selfish acts, and inability to stop talking, she leads her family and herself to their death. Throughout the story it is obvious that the grandmother is very judgemental of people and seems to consider herself as better than everyone.
In the 1953 short story titled “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, readers are given a glimpse of what the end of the story may look like through use of foreshadowing, symbolism, and other literary techniques. Although the story looks to be an innocent story of a family who travels to Florida for vacation at the start of it, readers soon find out that the story has a darker twist to it. This family trip turns violent and this gruesome ending can easily represent the violence taking place in America during the time this story was written by O’Connor and even today. The short story starts off with a family of six- parents, a grandmother, and three children-
The grotesque psychopathic nature of the characters in Flannery O’Connor’s, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” ironically shows how a good man does not truly exist through the revelation and proclamation of what characteristics a good man possess. In the story The Misfit shows characteristics of a psychopath by escaping prison and killing an innocent family. However, The Misfit isn’t the only character in the short story to show psychopathic tendencies. The grandma also shows some characteristics of a psychopath because she does not care or show remorse for her family who was brutally murdered
Being a good man to society and a good man to someone can have different meanings, as they do in this story. In Flannery O’Connor’s story we explore the irony of the grandmother and use of the word good and the meaning behind it. The grandmother in the beginning brings her cat along even though her son said no. She starts out being somewhat of a rebellious character who is going to do as she pleases.
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a short story written by Flannery O’Connor that depicts a haughty, impudent southern family, lead by a manipulative grandmother, who are ambushed by the Misfit, the criminal. The grandmother in the tale claims to be a lady and a devout Christian, which is contrary to her every action. She had deceived her family by telling the children that "There was a secret:panel in this house," she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were,” (O’Connor), and lead them down the paths that would eventually be their gravesites. While the grandmother had wanted to go and reminisce back at the old plantation she had lied to get her way, which disobeys the ninth commandment, thou shalt not lie. If she were
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
In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor draws upon the concept of good vs. evil. The grandmother being good and the Misfit being evil. There are many ways you can characterize the grandmother, but I found her to be a caring, racist, humble and a religious person. From the get go the grandmother seems to be caring because she was really concerned if the family went to Florida they will encounter the Misfit. She says, “Here this fellow that calls himself the Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida…
Flannery O’Connor ‘s short work of fiction, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is about Grandmother, a woman who thinks very highly of herself, and has absolutely no self-awareness as to what kind of person she really is. No matter how much she manipulates and judges, she still
A convict and a grandmother are more alike than the common one may think. In Flannery O’Conner’s story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, demonstrates a similarity between the Misfit and the grandmother showing that good and evil are not the same in all individuals. O’Conner uses these certain characters to show the difference between good and bad, but in the end both the grandmother and the Misfit show a change in character. Flannery O’Conner’s catholic background has influenced all her stories. O’Conner’s family was one of the first to live in her hometown of Milledgeville, Georgia she also attended parochial school.
A good man is hard to find is a story that one is struck by the violence that occurs at the end of the tale unexpectedly. The incident that took place between the misfit and the grandmother, as well as the people that were involved in the accident, can be boastful. The grandmother and the misfit have a conversation that is friendly, and at the same time, it is not that much friendly. The grandmother says that the Misfit or the man in glasses looks like he is a good man and that he knows he comes from good people. The man agrees that he is right and he further says that, “God never made a finer woman than my mother and my daddy’s heart was pure gold.”
The balance of what is good and what is bad is a rather controversial topic in the story "A Good Man is Hard to Find". Most notably, the characteristics of both the Grandmother and the Misfit. The Misfit portrays an immoral personality and seems to be the evil in the story while the grandmother is the innocent lady seeking to be the good in this story. However, the religious virtues effect both personas and in itself draws the line around them mutually as sinners. Both characters have a particular relationship with Jesus, a physical crisis crossed with a spiritual crisis and different conceptions of reality; thus, revealing how the portrayal of these characters are not what may seem.
(6:27). O 'Connor presents both the view of the Misfit as a fellow human being in pain, and the feeling of love for him, as a gift from God. The grandmother as a human being, is prone towards evil and selfishness, so she could never have come to feel such love without God 's help, as this man was going to kill her. This moment of grace is incredibly important in the story. The Misfit kills the grandmother, withdrawing from her and what seems foreign to him (human compassion), but the grandmother already had her moment of redemption.
Throughout the short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" there are many conflicts and characteristics that lead up to her not being a traditional grandmother; self-centered, manipulative, racist, and many other negative things. Although, an unexpected hero from the short story saves her; the Misfit. The Misfit is a criminal and does not fit the traditional "hero" category.