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

Some people dream about murdering their parents, and others make it a reality. In Flannery O’ Connors short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” she uses the characters to do just this. The story begins with Bailey intending to take his family on a vacation from Georgia to Florida. Baileys mother, the grandmother, argues with him saying that there is a convict of the loose in Florida so the family should instead head to East Tennessee to visit relation. Needless to say none her family bothered to listen to her, so they loaded up in the car and headed south. While driving, the grandmother realizes that they are near a plantation that she had visited years ago, and she proceeds to convince Bailey to drive down a dirt road that will lead them to

O’Connor’s mother is defined as “...domineering, invasive, and aloof…” (Reuman par. 5) and that’s the exact definition of the grandmother! She’s constantly doing nit- picky things like reminding her grown son what the speed limit is, or arrogantly commenting on how she is much better off than the, “…little niggers in the country…” (Flannery 2-3). The way she meddles into the Misfits life to get answers as to why he is the way he is, and why he hasn’t accepted Jesus (Flannery 10-14). The way she responds to her family being taken into the woods is much too detached and casual. The author says, “... she adjust[ed] her hat brim as if she were going to the woods with him but it came off in her hand. She stood staring at it and after a second she let it fall on the ground” (Flannery 10). In the meantime her son and her grandson are being taken into the woods to be killed! It’s as if she is too worried about her hat than she is her own kin! This has to be a representation of Flannery O’Connor’s relationship with her own mother because when one thinks of a grandmother it’s often associated with love and protection not selfishness and inattentiveness. O’Connor felt as if her mother simply did not care about her, and the only time her mother even bothered to talk to her was to correct the wrong in her life. Flannery feels like life is taking her off to kill her, and all her mother does is sit there caring about her