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

925 Words4 Pages

Blas Ramirez
English 1302
Mrs. Drake-Thomas
February 5, 2016
A Good Man is Hard to Find

What is the definition of good? The dictionary defines it as morally excellent, virtuous, righteous, and pious. In “A good man is hard to find”, Red Sammy, the owner of a BBQ restaurant called The Tower says, “Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more.” (43) In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, O’Connor expresses the elusive definition of a good man. O’Connor’s view is greatly defined by her personal history, culture, prominent use of symbolism and heavy characterizations of Red Sammy, Bailey, Grandmother, and the Misfit. “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, …show more content…

Red Sammy is the owner of the BBQ place “The Tower”; this is where the grandma and her family go to eat before facing their demise. Red Sammy and the grandma get along very well, speaking about the past and how much better life was in their time. Red Sammy then asks Bailey why he would let two strangers charge their gasoline and the grandmother replies, “He did it because he is a good man. In this case, her definition of “good” seems to include gullibility, poor judgment, and blind faith, none of which are inherently “good”. The grandmother’s disparate application of the label “good man” reveals that “good” doesn’t imply moral or kind. For the grandmother, a man is a “good man” if his values are aligned with her own. Another example of the word good being used with a different meaning Is when the grandma applies the label “good” to the Misfit (The wanted banded in the story), She applies this label for her own intentions and believes he too shares the same morals as her. “He wouldn’t shoot a lady” is what the grandma told the misfit naively but to her surprise the misfit is only good at one thing and that’s his consistency in living out his moral code of “no pleasure but meanness.” After realizing that she cant get through the misfits head and he doesn’t believe in not shooting a lady she abruptly throws her hat to showing a sign of defeat knowing that she will not make

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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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A good man is hard to find story is about unusual family situation which happens to be Bailey and his family. This story is surrounding by the families fateful; encounter with the Misfit. The grandmother not mentioned that she knew he was an escaped convict; perhaps the family might have walked away from what becomes certain death. It is under these circumstances, having told the Misfit to pray and be changed, that the grandmother ultimately knows that nothing can save her. She sees that the two of them are connected in the way they see the world—but not through any sense of goodness.

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In A Good Man Is Hard to Find, the grandmother, her son Baily, and his family take a vacation to Florida. However, the grandmother is opposed to vacationing in Florida and unsuccessfully tries to convince Baily, to take the family to east Tennessee. Grandmother actively tries to persuade Baily by showing him an article of a loose fugitive by the name of The Misfit traveling towards Florida. This introduction introduces O’Connor’s readers to the stories title “A Good Man.” R. Neil Scott states, Unlike Hawthorne, O’Connor does not depict evil in this story however; she does label the term “good” and what it means in this sense (50).

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