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A Good Man is Hard to Find: Response “Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. ”-Flannery O’Connor Flannery O’Connor’s (A Good Man is Hard to Find) is a great American Southern Gothic published in The Avon Book of Modern Writing, 1953. This type of Gothic writing was not popular at the time, however O’Connor thrived as a writer during this time, with her grotesques satire on poor and middle-class southern whites.
“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” written by Katherine Anne Porter, is about a grandmother who is in denial that she is about to die. And “A Good Man is Hard to Find” written by Flannery O’Connor, is about a family that goes to visit family in Tennessee but are brutally murdered before they get there. These two stories share many similarities and differences in both the characters, and conflict.
In "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O’Connor is about a family going to Florida, but there will be lesson that they will learn is their personal lives. One main thought that surfaces in the story is how there is so few of good men left in the world and how does a decent man treat others. The characters in the story see themselves as incredible people in light of moral codes that they stay by. These ethical codes are significantly flawed regardless, leaving each character blinded by their own particular gaudiness. O'Connor shows the character of the Misfit, an escaped executioner.
At the end of ¨A Good Man is Hard to Find” there is the strange scene where the Grandmother says to the Misfit, “Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!” (O'Connor 30) and then she reaches out and touches him. He “sprang as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest.
In order to decide which of these two characters are least sympathetic, the definition must be entirely understood. According to Dictonary.com, "characterized by, proceeding from, exhibiting, or feeling sympathy," moreover, sympathy is defined as, "harmony of or agreement in feeling, as between persons or on the part of one person with respect to another" (sympathetic). In the stories, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor and "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe; the least sympathetic character between The Misfit and Montresor is undoubtedly the Montresor. Both characters are incredibly cold and Poe and O'Connor included a lot of symbolism that develops the character.
Today, I’ll be introducing you to a couple of foreshadows in the story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor. For those that don’t know what foreshadow means; it means to give hints to what’s going to happen later on in the story. Also, I’ll be explaining the tension and suspense in the foreshadows. The First foreshadow I’ll be talking about is when the grandma didn’t want to go to Florida.
In short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor gives her views about what we generally use to identify a person as either being good or bad. In the story, O’Connor uses the grandmother’s view of what a good person is, providing a vague definition of what differentiates a good man or woman from the rest. She is suggesting in this case that the qualities of a good man or a good woman include being respectful, polite and truthful, which are qualities identifiable with the Christian way of life that much of O’Connor’s works allude to (Ochshorn, 1990; Kirszner and Mandell, 2012). Although Red Sammy fakes being friendly, the grandmother still describes him as being a good man. Red Sammy has faked this friendliness and had created nostalgia to help his business (Curley, 2013).
In Flannery O’Connors “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the reader is introduced to a family who undergoes a tragic incident that would have been avoided. As the grandmother of the family got her son, wife, and three children to agree on a road trip which they thought would be fun. But it was not until the grandmother realized they were not where she thought she was in Tennessee and they suffered through a brutal car accident. The family managed to be okay up until the murderer on the news known as the Misfit shows up to where the car accident occurred. The Misfit and his two other partners then choose that they will execute the family since they had the opportunity handed to them.
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’ Connor, after studying this story I found many interesting aspects of the story. First off, I was fascinated by how the grandmother consistently talked about how she met with a “good man”, and how changed as the story went on. At the beginning of the story, the grandmother spoken to the restaurant owner that he was a “good man” after letting two men charge their gasoline on credit and not paying directly for it. In this case, her definition of “good” seems to include poor judgment and unsuspecting, none of which are really “good” traits for a man to have.
A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor is a short story that expresses the many different literary devices. The ones that appear throughout are symbolism, foreshadowing, and irony. O’Connor shows how there is always more to the words that are spoken than just what the ear allows to be heard. Through these devices, O’Connor reveals to the reader the deeper meaning behind the words and how the words express grace that then leads to salvation. O’Connor really tests the audience’s focus with her symbolism techniques because she makes the reader have to find the truth and go beyond the text.
Throughout time, the idea of what a good man is has changed. It used to be centered on the church – either you were a good man who went to church, or you were a heathen. During the time period of this story, the mid-nineteen fifties, everything was changing. While the new generations were beginning to award the “good man” or “good woman” titles to people that actually went out of their way to help others, the older generations were still stuck in the eighteenth century. In this short story titled “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor makes it a point to show the difference between proclaiming to be a good man, and being one.
Among the many authors who have made an immense contribution to the development of American literature and shaped its landscape, it is impossible not to mention Flannery O'Connor. Her excellent writing manner and the fierce, often ironic, and to a certain extent comic works reflected the nature of life in the South with its darkness, religious beliefs, and even fun. While the works by the author were to a large extent impacted by her health condition and the life she had to lead as a result of it, she used to deny the fact. Nevertheless, her short stories, such as “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” contain a reflection on her condition, starting from the history of their creation and to the manner in which those works are written. Under such considerations,
. In this particular story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor uses grotesque actions and themes to create a plot twist that leaves readers on the edge of their seats. Southern Gothic is a genre which focuses on damaged, delusional characters. Contrastingly, when someone thinks of a grandmother, it is usually of sweet remembrances from when she told stories or gave extra sweet foods before dinner. The grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, which name remains unknown throughout the story, is portrayed as a manipulator and exceedingly puts her family in a life or death situation.
In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, a family trip has been arranged to travel to Florida, however the real experience is found in the lives of the family. The story’s title brings about the idea that finding a good man in today’s society may be quite difficult. Most of our characters in this story believe that they are good people based on their own personal beliefs. However these beliefs aren’t exactly facts, therefore, leaving the characters lost in their own self-righteousness.
“A Good Man is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor, is a story about a grandmother who is traveling with her son and his family to Florida. Since the beginning, she makes it clear that she does not want to go to Florida, even mentioning that there is a criminal on the loose. The truth is that the woman is not really worried about the safety of her family. She only wants to go to Tennessee, and telling her son about the criminal is her way of manipulating him. The woman’s selfishness and hypocrisy are what ultimately leads the family to its doom, and these themes, along with the element of the plot, are quite important for the story, for they show the readers about the importance of being selfless and honest with themselves and others.
