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Literary Devices In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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In connection to this week’s assignment, I have selected the short story entitled “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flanner O’Connor to read and give a concrete analysis. After reading this story, I got the idea that the story was being told mainly from the Grandmother's perspective; her son, Bailey, and his wife hardly said much while their children, John Wesley and June Star were pretty much talkative and fails to acknowledge those in authority. For instance, from my point of view, this story embraced several themes such as racial prejudice, self-interest, and the struggle to gain approval versus having a sense of belongingness. Additionally, the setting of this story occurred in Georgia, southeast of the United States (O’Connor, 1953). As a result, the four main things that I noticed from this story is that the author made use of several literary devices such as foreshadowing, irony, and simile to describe the characters and scenery of events occurring as well as, give us insights that this family of 6 would eventually be killed by the ex-convict called the Misfit on their same day of departure and they were never …show more content…

As seen in the end, the Grandmother, as one of the main protagonists in this story, only realized the importance of exhibiting grace and compassion, just before her death and it appeared that this tragic incident was what really united this family and somewhat gave the Misfit a new outlook on life. As a result, the last part of this story was what stood out for me. Additionally, throughout this story, it was continually brought to my attention that we’re living in a perilous time where people hardly embrace empathy, can’t be trusted by what they say before us, and sometimes, life goes downhill for innocent people and transforms them into monsters

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William Martin Professor English 15 April 2017 A Good Man Is Hard To Find: What Is “Good”? In this work by Mary Flannery O’Connor, the protagonist, referred to as “the grandmother,” tries to persuade her son to take the family to East Tennessee. Her son, Bailey, wants to visit Florida instead and so she tries to change his mind.

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Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist and short story writer. A woman once said of O’Connor after a reading of one of her stories, “It's a shame that someone with so much talent would look upon life as a horror show.” While this quote may hold some truth, Flannery O'Connor skillfully establishes complex characters of realism to illustrate the theme of negative yet natural humans naturally displayed throughout life. O'Connor crafts writing using calculated foreshadowing and symbolism to guild the reader to the theme. In the story A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor uses a graveyard to foreshadow the end of the story.

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The Grandmother is the only member of the family still alive at this point. The misfit holds the grandmother at gunpoint. The grandmother uses faith as a way to escape death and pleads for the character to spare her life. “Pray!” The grandmother pleads pathetically.

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Flannery O’Connor is a renowned Southern author, noted for her gothic works and heavily Catholic themes. She focuses predominantly on racial tensions, morality, and divine grace. The religious and moral themes of her short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, converge on the character of the grandmother. Despite the self-proclamations of fulfilling what it means to be a Southern lady, Grandmother holds a superficial grasp of her religion. Throughout the story, the Grandmother never truly changed, only her ostensible actions did.

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and they are all planning a trip to Florida. Although it has been decided that they are going to Florida, the grandmother is frustrated and tries to convince her son and his family that they should go to Tennessee instead since more family lives there and there are sights to see there. She also argues that going to Florida would only put the family in danger as there was a serial killer on the loose who goes by the name of “Misfit”. This, in itself, already raises a red flag for readers since they just so happen to be travelling to a place where a serial killer is running loose. Despite the grandmother’s protests against their trip to Florida, they all get in the car and begin their journey.

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In contrast, after recognizing the Misfit and putting her and her family into an inescapable situation, the Grandmother finally drops all of her negative traits and turns to God for help. “The grandmother noticed how thin his shoulder

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“A Good Man is Hard to Find” narrates a story of a manipulative grandmother who always enforces a “moral code” on her family members. When her son, Bailey, announces a family vacation to Florida, the grandmother “[seizes] at every chance to change” his mind because she desires to “visit some of her connections” (137) in Tennessee instead. She reveals her crafty, “snake-like” nature as she “[rattles] the newspaper at [Bailey’s] bald head,” telling him about a murderer who “calls himself The Misfit” (137). When Bailey does not react, the grandmother “[wheels] around… and [faces] the children’s mother” (137). Realizing that the news of the Misfit will not influence the family into changing their travel plans, the grandmother devises a new tactic.

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In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the grandmother’s selfish attitude and pride forces the family to change their traveling plans. The grandmother was persistent on going to Tennessee, but the rest of her family wanted to go elsewhere. After bothering her family enough she got her way. On this trip she convinces the family to take a small detour where they would meet their tragic fate of death. O’Connor shows how the grandmother’s selfish pride led to each one of the family members death.

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The grandmother spiritual side began to come out of her. She might have been a Christian the whole time with us not knowing. Just because a she didn’t talk about it, doesn’t mean she is not a Christian. The grandmother is changed into the special of God’s elegance is to do genuine savage to the story. When he shoots her with the gun, Misfit saw his evil and good inside of

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It is the grandmother’s selfishness that leads to the death of her family. The short story “A good Man is Hard to Find” teaches us that nothing good come from being selfish. Being selfish has plenty of consequences. One of them is that when you are selfish you or your loved once suffer. In the short story by O’Connor, the grandmother’s selfishness leads to the death of her family.

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The story gives way of foreshadowing the unfortunate ending in several instances. The first one is when Grandmother Bailey is trying to change the destination of the trip by showing her son the newspaper article about the man that escaped from the penitentiary. "Here this that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it”

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In her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor introduces the reader to a world of family issues, danger, and murder. The story was written in 1955 during a period of social and racial unrest in the southern United States. Mostly, the story follows O 'Connor 's basic Southern Gothic writing style. A work that is "cold and dispassionate, as well as almost absurdly stark and violent" (Galloway). While the quote gives major insight into the theme of the story, it does not offer a glimpse into O 'Connor 's real message of the story.

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1393 Words | 6 Pages

In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor creates a story where the roles of good and evil blend together. In the short story, a family in the rural South gets caught up with a criminal named the Misfit after their wreck and they end up getting murdered. The clash between the grandmother and the Misfit highlights the religious aspects of the story and also O’Connor’s beliefs. Her stylistic traits of violence, distortion, and religion are used to convey a corrupt world that needs salvation. O’Connor’s trait of violence is used throughout to reveal the corrupt and criminal world that emanates the need for salvation.

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The Role of Family in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, written by Flannery O’Connor is a short story that brings out mystery and cruelty. Manipulation plays a big role in this story by the grandmother. She tends to manipulate her family and tends to get her way by playing with them. Although the author wanted to give many perspectives of the grandmother, we as reader got our own views of her.

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The grandmother grew in that moment of death more than she ever did in the little parts that we read about her life, and she dies in peace. Her actions may have even changed the Misfit too. At the end, he says “she would have been a good woman if he 'd been there all her life to shoot her.” (366). This line confused me the first time reading it, but the second time around it made more sense.

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