Characteristics In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

“A Good Man Is Hard To Find”: Characters Qualities and their Changes
Flannery O’Connor’s short story A Good Man Is Hard To Find tells about the end of Bailey’s family; it is called by father’s first name as the author did not mention characters’ last name. The man’s mother, hereafter referred to as the Grandmother, did not want to go to Florida and preferred to visit places of her youth. Woman’s contumacy led to the car accident; she took her cat to the trip and the pet disturbed the driver. After that the family met with escaped convicts led by the criminal called Misfit and were killed by them. The Grandmother was the only character that achieved a “public” death: “the Misfit… shot her three times through the chest” (O’Connor); other family members were shot in the forest. During the whole scene the woman kept her Southern views and hoped the criminal will not kill an old lady.
While the

Misfit chose his way by himself; the man mentioned there were not many factors, like family history, that could mislead him. “O’Connor uses the Misfit to show how grace and salvation are available to both saint and sinner alike” (“The Misfit In ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’”). It means the Grandmother represents a saint in this pair. However, a deeper analysis of the text highlights the woman was not as innocent as it looked at first sight. She demonstrated signs of egoism. The Grandmother took her cat to the trip despite her son’s objections. She also made Bailey to change traffic rout to visit a house of her youth (that appeared to be in another state). It is possible to say woman’s indirect actions became a reason of family’s death. The Grandmother also looks naive and effusive; the character showed she recognized Misfit without thought of consequences of such move. All these events partially break the image of an innocent victim that the Grandmother achieves with other members of the