What Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor Characterizes The Landscape

Flannery O’Connor characterizes the landscape as a participant in the plot of A Good Man is Hard to Find by giving it the role of a supporting character through the use of various figurative devices when describing the scenery in the story. O’Connor utilizes personification, metaphor, foreshadow and irony in her descriptions of the setting to establish mood, demonstrate character’s personalities, and enhance the reader’s emotional reactions to the events that unravel in the story.

O’Connor’s use of personification to induce emotion in the reader is evident at the moment that the gunshot killing Bailey is heard. When the gunshot sounds, “The old lady’s head jerked around. She could hear the wind move through the tree tops like a long satisfied

As the family travels on the road where the grim events unfold, the grandma recollects that, “All at once they would be on a hill, looking down over the blue tops of trees for miles around, then the next minute, they would be in a red depression with the dust-coated trees looking down on them” (O’Connor 475). The “red depression” predicts the impending bloodshed that the Misfit causes and the “dust-coated trees” refer to the dark forest stained with blood. This use of foreshadowing builds suspense and contributes to the portrayal of the grandmother’s strange ways of describing the scenery. Consequently, the landscape establishes the character of the grandmother through her depictions of the surroundings, and creates a suspenseful mood for the remainder of the

When the family sits in the car the narrator reveals that the grandmother wears touches of lace and purple clothing so that, “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O’Connor 471). This demonstrates the strange ideas that go through the grandmother’s mind and paints a picture of what she imagines her death to be like. However, the irony stems from the true setting of her death where “…the grandmother…half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood” (O’Connor 481). The dramatic irony – proposed by the setting of her imagined death versus actual death – demonstrates how detached the grandmother is from reality. Specifically, she pictures her death to be glorious, with people surrounding her to identify her; she gives no thought to the fact that her family would be affected in this situation as well. When the true accident occurs, the image is so different from what she expected that it affects the emotional reaction that would traditionally be associated with the scene. As a result, the compassion that one would feel towards her character is reduced because she has previously glorified death. Ultimately, the dramatic irony reveals aspects of the grandmother’s character and affects the reader’s emotional response to the