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Literary Techniques In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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The many twist and turns of O’ Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” leaves readers perplexed when they think about all the different possibilities and meanings to the story. O’ Connor left us waiting for a happily ever after that didn’t quite come out the way we expected it to, which is what made the story so intriguing. In a “Good Man Is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’ Connor uses literary techniques such as foreshadowing, imagery and irony to create abnormal characters and a twisted plot that many view as a moment of grace, but how? The big question about the end of “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” has to do with the fact that the grandmother calls the Misfit her child and tries to reach out to him. So what exactly does this gesture mean? Learning …show more content…

The Misfit kills the grandmother, even though it doesn’t feel right to him, but the grandmother had already had her minute of forgiveness and redemption, and she grew more spiritual during her last dying moments than she had her whole life.” The grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child’s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky.” (Page 149) At the end her acts of kindness might have changed the Misfit too. “She would have been a good woman, “The Misfit said, “If it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” (Page 150) This line shows that the grandmother got her redemption by confronting the Misfit’s evil, and being able to feel sorry for him. The Misfit recognized her kindness, even though he backed away from it. He also goes from saying that the only real pleasure in life is “meanness” to stating that it’s “no real pleasure in life.”(Page 150) Killing the grandmother troubles him. So this moment of grace worked on him too, and there might be some changes in his character. O’Connor developed a very inspiring story by using grace and a few unlucky characters to inform us about the Christ-haunted

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Regardless of the way that he executes her, the Misfit is proposed to have achieved some level of grace as well when he says at the end of the story, "It's no honest to goodness bliss throughout everyday life." Earlier in the story, he declared the main delight out of life was

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Flannery O’Connor uses foreshadowing throughout her story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” If the reader picks up on the foreshadowing in the beginning of the story, he or she can tell that the ending is not going to bode well for Bailey and his family. Discussions of The Misfit, descriptions of the family, and other parts of the story provide evidence of foreshadowing where the reader will be able to make an assumption of the fate for Bailey’s family. Flannery O’Connor uses too much foreshadowing in this story; if the reader is really paying attention to the foreshadowing in this story then he or she can figure out how the story will end. O’Connor does not waste anytime throwing foreshadowing topics into this story.

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The Misfit’s belief in inevitable “punish[ment],” reveals his twisted view on life, a view that could only be created through undeserving pain. The final instance of the Misfit’s unjustified suffering becomes evident through the reason behind his name. In a final explanation to the grandmother, the Misfit states that he gave himself this strange title because he “can 't make what all [he] done wrong fit what all he] gone through in punishment” (O’Connor 15). The Misfit’s inability to explain his “punishment” reveals the thesis behind his murderous lifestyle, a lifestyle crafted from experiences past. Instances of the Misfit’s unjust punishment can be seen through his explanation of his imprisonment, his belief of inevitable punishment, and the thesis behind his crimes.

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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-

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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

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“A Good Man is Hard to find”, was one of Ms. Flannery O’Connor’s well known story that shows what she is known for in her writing : violence, well thought characters with humor, and shows her Roman Catholic faith. Throughout the story, there are certain details that make the story what it seems to be than what Ms. O’Connor had to portray. Although it would be seen as a shocking violent murder plot all in one, there can be another side to the story as well. In the story of A Good Man is Hard to Find shows that people would think O’Connor was mocking religion, in actuality she was not. The characters in the story are used to expose the idea between good and evil and hypocrisy.

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She is only trying to convince the misfit that he is a good man because she wants to be freed, and her life is in shambles. Also, the grandmother has already gone back on her word multiple of times, calling the misfit a big, bad, and scary man. Now all of the sudden he is a good man. Therefore, the grandmother still has not changed a

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The family stops for lunch at “The Tower and meets a character called Red Sammie Butts. This is where the grandmother strikes up a conversation with him. They talk about how it was back in the olden days when there were good people and Red Sammy states, “A good man is hard to find,” (Lawrence 410). The Misfit is the second major character in the story after the grandmother. The Misfit is an escaped criminal who comes in contact with the grandmother and her family when they get into an accident on the road.

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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

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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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This notion of redemption is primarily seen with the Misfit and his character development away from the pleasure of a murderer. Had it not been for the collision of the Grandmother and his paths, redemption would have been unlikely, even unachievable, for him. O’Connor intended for this story to have a positive ending, despite the death toll that is present at the end of the story. With her Catholic beliefs, the small act of the Grandmother’s compassion and the Misfit’s questioning of his morals are rather impactful to each of their redemptions. Perhaps O’Connor’s religious views could be insightful to religious scholars on the question of whether human nature is

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The reality between the Misfit and the Grandmother are very different and from this viewpoint it seems as if the Grandmother is a more dishonest and unfaithful person when it comes to selfishness. The Misfit does not express selfishness, rather he equally treats himself as he would with the people that he murdered. With two distinct differences in reality, both show similar signs of

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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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(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.

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The misfit gains awareness of human morals when he kills the grandmother and he says, "She would have been a good woman...if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life" (O 'Connor 1020), he then realized that she wasn 't all that good. O 'Connor did a good job of interpreting the grandmother as a way to put away the values of the old Southern America; she also interprets the Misfit as a type of common man who is defiantly not perfect which can a realistic version of the new Southern America. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find", the irritating grandmother cares more about matters such as her appearance and manners, she dressed her best for the car ride and the reason for her doing this is so that "In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would at once know that she was a lady." (O 'Connor 1010). The grandmother is a very selfish woman, the first thing she said to the Misfit is "You wouldn 't shoot a lady, would you?"

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