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

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Redemption is the act of being saved from acts of evil and sin. The debate of whether human nature is redeemable or not has been one to plaque religious scholars. In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, this question continues in the interactions between the characters; the most notable being the Grandmother of a rather horrible family and the Misfit, a murderer. While on a road trip, these two characters’ paths collide and lead to a rather unfortunate end where the Grandmother and her family are killed. While many readers believe the ending creates and overall negative tone of the story, some believe that there is a hope for redemption; the story’s author O’Connor who is a devoted Catholic included. Even though human nature is flawed within Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, there is a chance for redemption near the story’s ending. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the Grandmother has an epiphany with the Misfit that increases her chance for redemption. Throughout the entire story, the Grandmother is known for her selfish thinking and her one-track mind that, like many humans, is only focused on what she would like to do. Redemption for …show more content…

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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Throughout much of O’Connor’s works, there is this idea that a character needs redemption, as Dorothy Walters suggests in her book, Flannery O’Connor. Walters also states when these characters are enlightened, it is often “through catastrophe.” In O’Connor’s “Good Country People,” this salvation through violence occurs for Joy. Through the evaluation of Joy’s downfalls in character and her misinterpretation of Manley Pointer, Joy has a horrific experience that will forever change her perspective and reform her overconfidence. Before Joy/Hulga even meets Manley Pointer, readers understand that she has a lack of experience in the real world.

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“A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” by Flannery O’Connor, is a short story about a stubborn grandmother that has her whole family killed by an escaped prisoner named the Misfit. This story is a work of theological literature that shows that violence can be an act of religious faith rather than simply pleasure. At first, the Misfit is portrayed as a psychopath murdering people for the fun of it but that is not true. He actually says that “It’s no real pressure in life (22).”

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In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, the author portrays the grandmother as self-centered, dishonest and prideful woman. The grandmother is an old, southern, Caucasian woman who describes herself as a good woman. Throughout the story, O’Connor shows how the grandmother’s pride, and selfishness leads her to unappreciated her family. She does not care about them, she only cares about herself and what will benefit her. The grandmother’s selfishness, judgmental actions, dishonesty put the family in danger.

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In the short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor’s goal is to teach her readers an important lesson. By presenting an exaggerated and flawed character, and through a peek into her life, she displays the consequences of many faults, but most importantly, the danger of a lack of self-awareness. By the end of the story, the main character, Grandmother, has had an epiphany, brought on by a traumatizing event. By giving them an outside view of the folly of her character, Flannery O’Connor hopes to warn her readers of following the same path that will inevitably lead to destruction in some way or another.

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The Misfit 's mind is one of the most complicated of any villain in O 'Connor’s stories and in all literature. His mental state is most evident in "the scene between the Grandmother and the Misfit at the climax of the story" (Walls 3) This recent escapee 's psyche can be described as "tails short of the athlete’s morality, for he plays by no one 's rules except his own" (Fike). This mental state is typical of most criminals but the Misfit’s perception on religion is not so conventional. Usually, when a person commits a heinous act and if the person is spiritual they will say God told them to do it.

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Moreover, when the Misfit and the two men shoot the whole family in the woods, it illustrates the sinister and cruel world that needs saving. The violent car crash that causes the family to encounter the Misfit in the first place adds to the violent display that O’Connor creates of the world. O’Connor uses the violence in the story to shock the readers into self-awareness (Larson 1). She uses this self-awareness to bring to light the religious theme of redemption and grace for the corrupted. O’Connor’s

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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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(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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