Summary Of A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

The short story being discussed is “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” written by Flannery O’Connor. The theme is developed throughout the trip’s twists and turns until the reader can understand the meaning of a good man is hard to find, which could be identified as the battle between good and bad. This idea is then blurred as the grandmother continues to call the Misfit a good man as she appears to save herself. The characters did not necessarily change, but there was more clarity as some of the characters developed throughout the story. The articulable facts of the grandmother’s actions of deception and manipulation provided the most clarity of why she was compared to a snake throughout the story (O’Connor, 2004). As a result of her actions, the grandmother is ultimately responsible for the family’s death at the hands of the Misfit and his associates. Even with this knowledge, the grandmother questioned the Misfit “you wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?” During this conversation, she has a moment of clarity where she recognizes the Misfit as a child of her own and reaches out to touch him, which results in her death on earth and rebirth in everlasting life with Christ (Keil, 2006).

There is foreshadowing continuously throughout the work with seemingly inconspicuous statements of death. One such example is the five or six grave markers seen in the vast cotton field, which the traveling family had five or six if the baby was buried with the mother. Another reference to death is the “hearse-like” vehicle that was traveling down the road towards them as they waited in the ditch line. The author also uses similes and metaphors to describe the forest as a “gaped like dark open mouth,” and when Bailey Boy and John Wesley were killed, grandmother heard the wind through the trees “like a long satisfied insuck of breath” (O’Connor,