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The grandmother analysis in a good man is hard to find
The grandmother analysis in a good man is hard to find
Character analysis on the grandmother in a good man is hard to find
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rom the story, the author uses a interesting situational irony as introduction to point out the family indifferent. For example, “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee” (O’Connor 337). This shows that the grandmother was a selfish person. She only wanted to east Tennessee so that she used a reason “The Misfit [a crazy killer] is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida” (O’Connor 337) to satisfy her individual wants.
The grandmother can be characterized as a misfit in the story because she originally wants to go to Tennessee but the rest of the family wants to go to Florida. This shows you that she is the only one that doesn’t conform to everyone else’s opinion. She tries to convince everyone about the serial killer going around named “The Misfit” and how they might encounter it, but they choose to ignore her, this also foreshadows the events to come. Even though she didn’t want to go to Florida she doesn’t want to stay home, and also trying to convince her son’s kids but they just end up making fun of her.
He calls himself “The Misfit” because the punishments he has received doesn’t fit the crimes. The last and final conflict between the two comes when the grandmother tries to tell Misfit that he should pray again. Her ladylike convictions are finally in tatters and she is desperate. She even tries to bride Misfit and that fails. At this moment, Misfit goes into a rant about his thoughts on Jesus.
In Flannery O’Connor story, “A good man is hard to find”, the main character the Grandmother is described throughout the story as exhibiting negative behavior of selfishness, manipulation, judgment and racism. She also, shows a positive attitude of detail oriented person. The following passage will provide compelling evidence to support my argument. First, the Grandmother is egocentric.
In the story, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” by Flanner O’ Conner the story deals with a character who appears to be a dark caged animal .The Misfit is actually a fallen angel whom has been sent to eliminate the bad people of this world. The Misfit, is the antagonist in the story who is a convicted murderer aloose from the state penitently of Florida. The story describes the Misfit as being a ‘bad guy’ he kills an entire family. From a reader’s perspective, the misfit feels as though he does not belong in the world and battles a severe mental disorder.
The Misfit knows who he is and does not pretend to be otherwise, unlike the old lady. With a show of unpretentiousness, he clearly states, “Nome, I ain’t a good man” (O’Connor 427). In the end, the antagonist enlightens the Grandmother with his brutal honesty, and her “head cleared for an instance” (O’Connor 430). In the final moments of her life, she is able to drop all pretenses and view evil in the form of the Misfit as something she can accept within herself by exclaiming, “Why you’re one of my babies” (O’Connor 430). Ironically, at the moment she reaches out to him, he kills her.
Her final act towards the Misfit was not out of charity, but in attempt to save herself. Set in the South in the 1950s, the grandmother dutily satisfied the stereotypes that blossomed within her generation. She speaks of the older days, when children were more respectful, and good men were easier to find. However, she never expresses what defines a good man, which suggests her unsteady moral foundation. The grandmother also explicitly articulates the racism that was unfortunately common in the South, ironically prevalent in the religious and upper middle class circles like the ones she belonged to.
and they are all planning a trip to Florida. Although it has been decided that they are going to Florida, the grandmother is frustrated and tries to convince her son and his family that they should go to Tennessee instead since more family lives there and there are sights to see there. She also argues that going to Florida would only put the family in danger as there was a serial killer on the loose who goes by the name of “Misfit”. This, in itself, already raises a red flag for readers since they just so happen to be travelling to a place where a serial killer is running loose. Despite the grandmother’s protests against their trip to Florida, they all get in the car and begin their journey.
The Purpose of Psychopaths in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” In the short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” a family of six meets their demise on the side of the road in Georgia after a gang of convicts lead by The Misfit brutally murders each member of the family. The story starts off in an upbeat tone and sets up a seemingly happy plot about a family going on vacation to Florida. However, the grandmother does not listen to her son about taking her cat on the trip and her disobedience ultimately leads to all of their deaths. The author changes the tone of the story at the end when the family gets into a wreck and faces a gruesome death by a crazed armed killer on the loose (O’Connor#).
I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it” (309). Here, you can deeply tell that the grandmother does want her grandkids to go to Florida because there is a criminal on the loose and she could not bear her conscience if they encounter him. In a way, this foreshadows that the family will encounter the Misfit in the near future. The grandmother also seems to be racist and a bit stereotypical, she says “Little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do” (309). Although this does not seem that racist, however, it does displays how people back in the day
To start out in the first sentence of the story the grandmother was brought up. “The grandmother did not want to go to Florida” (O’Connor 1). It says she wanted to go to east Tennessee. She tried to get her son Bailey not to go to Florida, and she also looked down on the mother for wanting to take them to somewhere they had been before, when she had been to Tennessee before.
Characters can change a great deal throughout the course of a story. Based off of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," we see just how much a character will change. There are many reasons for the character shift (undergoes an inner change) that are left up for our interpretation, which can be read about in The Theory Toolbox. In "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," the grandma undergoes a great deal of shifting in her character.
The story opens with a man named Bailey who is going on a trip with his family to Florida. However, his mother had other plans and becomes the "manipulative grandmother lecturing her apathetic son" (Sparrow). At first she tries to convince her son to change the trip destination saying ""(O 'Connor). It might be inferred that she meant well by warning Bailey about the prison escapee traveling in the same direction. Unfortunately, later in the story the reader finds out that .
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
These events are easily found in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" because the violence takes place casually at the end of the story, the murderer doesn 't try to be sneaky about it. At the beginning of the story the grandmother talks the family into visiting east Tennessee and not Florida by telling them that a dangerous inmate named "The Misfit" had escaped and is headed to Florida; "The Misfit is aloose from the federal Pen headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn 't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn 't answer to my conscience if it did."
