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Short Story A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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In the short story of “A good man is hard to find” is about a family wanting to take a vacation but the grandmother had different plans for the family. The family wanted to take a trip to Florida, but the grandmother wanted to go to Tennessee instead. The grandmother tried everything she could to change her son Baily’s mind. Nothing seemed to work, because Baily was just stubborn like his mother. The grandmother finally does convince the family to go to Tennessee; and that is when things turn out for the worse for the grandmother and the family. Baily and his family find out the hard way how like can be very ironic. The grandmother attempts to get the family to go to Tennessee were relentless. The grandmother told the family that a serial killer by the name of “The Misfit” had escaped from prison and was he headed straight towards Florida. This attempt did not work on Baily. The grandmother next attempt was to tell Baily and his wife that they should let the children see the world. The children should visit Tennessee, so they could get out and enjoy life. This attempt also did not work. The grandmother finally got the …show more content…

The grandmother had jumped because she had realized she had made a terrible mistake. The grandmother had startled the cat she had hidden in her basket. The cat had jumped onto Baily and caused him to have an accident. Everyone was okay after the accident and was resting on an old bank. While the family was resting a car came driving down the road. The car stopped and three men had gotten out of the car. The grandmother immediately realized that one of the men was “The Misfit” and that sealed the fate for her and the family. “The Misfit” tells the grandmother that they would have been better off not recognizing him, but in the end it does not help. The family was taken into the woods where they were shot and killed by “The

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Characters serve as the metaphorical foundation upon which a story is written. In fact, the personalities of characters often reveal the outcome of a story’s plot before the author explicitly states it. In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the self-indulgent grandmother portrays the outcome of her attempted evangelism through her sanctimonious nature. Through her illegitimate Christian appearance based on deceit and self-elevation, her failed attempt to persuade the Misfit can be attributed to her hypocritical personality.

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Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” was published in 1955. O’Connor was also known for her novel The Violent Bear it Away (published in 1960) and her collection of short stories Everything That Rises Must Converge (published in 1964). The author often used violence and greed to show how she saw humanity that was without God. She liked to write about pettiness and vanity in the rural south, both of which play large parts in “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” This particular piece of work is about a family who goes on a road trip that takes an unexpected turn when they cross paths with a murderer and his henchmen.

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Midterm Exam A Good Man is Hard to Find #2: What is the role of chance or fate in the story? •In Flannery O ' Conner 's “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the roles of chance and fate help to drive the plot to its high point. Chance is present when the grandmother, at the preamble of the story, refuses to be persuaded to travel to Florida in fear of a loose criminal nicknamed The Misfit. Instead, she decides on a whim to visit a friend in Tennessee.

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Back on the road, the grandmother

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Instead, she wanted to go to Tennessee. She showed the news that talked about the Misfit that escaped the Federal Pen to her son who was wanting to go to Florida. Later on in the story they met him at Red Sammy’s Famous Barbecue, but didn’t realize that it was the Misfit. Next, they crashed on the way to the plantation due to grandma noticing

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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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The short story “A Good Man Is Hard To find” by Flannery O’Conner, was published in 1955. It was written in third person limited point of view. The story takes place in the 1940s after world two, family takes a road trip traveling to Florida, but their journey takes an unsuspecting turn. O’Conner uses foreshadowing, verbal and situational irony and symbolism that illustrates the theme of the effect of the selfishness of the grandmother upon the family. The first character introduced in the story is the protagonist, the unnamed grandmother.

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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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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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The balance of what is good and what is bad is a rather controversial topic in the story "A Good Man is Hard to Find". Most notably, the characteristics of both the Grandmother and the Misfit. The Misfit portrays an immoral personality and seems to be the evil in the story while the grandmother is the innocent lady seeking to be the good in this story. However, the religious virtues effect both personas and in itself draws the line around them mutually as sinners. Both characters have a particular relationship with Jesus, a physical crisis crossed with a spiritual crisis and different conceptions of reality; thus, revealing how the portrayal of these characters are not what may seem.

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No one would have thought that the idyllic Southern life style could be turned into a Southern nightmare. In O 'Connors "A Good Man is Hard to Find" that is precisely what happens. " A Good Man is Hard to Find" is set in Southern America. This story has many tenets comparable to that of Southern Gothic fiction. Southern Gothic writing emphasizes on abnormal character and unusual events to create an unsettling portray of life in Southern America.

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In the short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor discusses the vacation of a family and the morals that leads them to their destination. The Grandmother wanted to travel to Tennessee instead of Florida for the family vacation. She tries to convince, her only son, Bailey how dangerous Florida is with criminals like “The Misfit” appearing there. She continues to say the children had already visited Florida and should broaden their horizon. John Wesley, Bailey son, suggested she should stay if she fears the danger, nevertheless the next morning she accompanied the family with her cat companion.

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