Compare And Contrast A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Good Country People

1427 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay describing the literary devices used in a good man is hard to find

In two short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Good Country People written by Flannery O’Connor, we are introduced to two antagonists, the Misfit and Manley Pointer. The Misfit, in A Good Man is Hard to Find, is a criminal on the run who comes across a family who has gotten in a car crash on their road trip. In Good Country People, Manly Pointer is a well to-do christian who travels across the south and tricks people into trusting him and then steals from them. These two villains in these stories share similar traits such as their dislike for religion and forcing the antagonist of the two stories to see who they really are. However, they also differ greatly from their approach to others and how they deal with their own cruel actions. …show more content…

The Misfit and Pointer both show interest to dislike when it comes to religion; however, both deal with religion differently. The Misfit states that he does not need Jesus and that he is capable of taking care of himself. This statement proves to be false, because the Misfit has struggled to be a law abiding citizen; the Misfit appears to know that he is wrong, because the more the Grandmother discusses religion the more he becomes upset with the woman. The Misfit appears to blame his life and actions on God saying that if there is truly a God then he would not be living the life of a criminal, the Misfit appears to have a more agnostic view. When it comes to religion, Manly Pointer shows a dislike to religion; however, he uses it as a ploy to earn people’s trust. Being a man who sells bibles, Pointer is able to gain communities trust and work his way into citizen’s homes and tricks people to believe he is a trustworthy man. When he reveals his true self he states, “ I hope you don’t think that I believe in that crap! I may sell Bibles but I know which end is up and I wasn’t born yesterday and I know where I’m going!” (O’Connor 9). Pointer shows his true dislike for religion, but portrays himself as a holy man in an attempt to get what he desires. While both men show a disinterest to religion, differing views, however, religion plays a part in both …show more content…

The Grandmother is an elderly woman who believes she possesses all of the qualities to be a lady. However, she passes judgement on to others thinking only highly of herself. Ironically, the Grandmother’s own actions are the ones that lead to her encounter with the Misfit and consequently leads to the death of her family and herself. Moments leading up to her death the Misfit helps lead the Grandmother into realizing that she is not better than anyone else. Her true moment of clarity is stating that the Misfit is one of her own children. Grandmother stating this shows she does not see herself as someone who is better than the Misfit. Moments after this realization the Misfit murders the Grandmother. After murdering the Grandmother the Misfit states, “‘She would of been a good woman,’ The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody to shoot her every minute of her life’” (O’Connor 430). The Grandmother lived a life where she only revealed her true kindness in moments of death. In Good Country People Hulga is a thirty-year-old overweight woman with a disability who still lives with her mother. Hulga has a doctorate in philosophy which leads her to have a much different outlook on life than those around her. She does not believe in religion and believes that she knows all there is to know about life and that she has society figured out.

Show More
Related

  • The Misfit

    1177 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Misfit tells the reader “My daddy said I was a different breed of dog from my brothers and sisters. ‘You know,’ Daddy said, ‘it’s some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it’s others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He’s going to be into everything!’ ” (O’Connor 1312). The Misfit never backed down from anything which is why his life is the way it is. The Misfit was the one, not good but not the worst either, person to make a stand and to ask why to justice system and his religion. These are the two belief systems that most won’t ever question, which is why the Misfit is such a controversial character. He will never stop asking, and will go against whatever to do what he sees fit, whether it be killing a man or changing his tire.

    Read More

  • Essay On A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    575 Words  | 2 Pages

    A Good Man is Hard to Find, there are two main characters whose faith should be analyzed: “the grandmother” and “the Misfit”. We can use Paul Tilloch’s six components to analyze their faith. The grandmother seems to have a great understanding of what faith is in five of the The Misfit is not “ultimately concerned” about his faith. The Misfit was confused as to why he was sent to prison and why he was punished in the ways that he was.

    Read More

  • Comparing Pride in A Good Man is Hard to Find, Good Country People and Revelation

    973 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Ellen Douglas, the "evil in human hearts, and the possibility of grace, the gift of love, are made terrifyingly and magnificently real" when the grandmother, at gunpoint, admits that The Misfit really is, in her standards, a good man at heart (381). He is better able to express his beliefs about religion, but she has no firm foundation. When he says, "She would [have] been a good woman, if there had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life," he is revealing the fact that her pride, instead of her faith, has carried her through life (O'Connor, "A Good Man" 392). She has merely acted out the life of a typical Southern lady of he...

    Read More

  • The Grandmother In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    863 Words  | 2 Pages

    Manipulation has been her go to tool for her entire life. She lies and tells The Misfit “I know you're a good man. You don't look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people!” Though she doesn’t believe a word of this. Then the Grandmother’s family is taken into the woods and shot. Hysteria has taken over her and she pleads for her own life. She doesn’t beg for her family. She tries to manipulate The Misfit. “’Listen,’ she said, ‘you shouldn't call yourself the Misfit because I know you're a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell.’” The Misfit, unlike the Grandmother knows exactly who he is. He is a bad man. He embraces this life and accepts who he is. He tells the Grandmother ”I ain't a good man… but I ain't the worst in the world neither.” The Misfit has lost all his humanity and compassion. He realizes this about

    Read More

  • A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O'Connor

    581 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are three phases of thought for the Grandmother. During the first phase, which is in the beginning, she is completely focused on herself in relation to how others think of her. The Second Phase occurs when she is speaking to The Misfit. In the story, The Misfit represents a quasi-final judgment. He does this by acting like a mirror. He lets whatever The Grandmother says bounce right off him. He never really agrees with her or disagrees, and in the end he is the one who kills her. His second to last line, "She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life," (O'Conner 152). might be the way O'Conner felt about most of us alive, or how she felt that God must feel about us.

    Read More

  • The Misfit and the Grandmother in Flannery O’ Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

    941 Words  | 2 Pages

    The granny and the misfit are two completely opposite characters that possess two different beliefs. The grandmother puts herself on a high pedestal and the way she calls the misfit ‘a good person’ based upon his family background gives the reader an idea of what the grandmother acknowledges to be considered as ‘good’. Self absorbed as sh...

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Misfit And A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    813 Words  | 2 Pages

    The grandmother has never truly understood what being saved means. She is also ignorant to what salvation is. The Misfit is missing the ability to empathize and bind with other people. He does not hold respect for human life. In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, it says “She would of been a good woman, The Misfit said, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” (430). In “‘One of My Babies’: The misfit and the grandmother”, written by Stephen C. Bandy, it says “The Misfit has already directed the execution of the Grandmother’s entire family, and it must be obvious to all including reader and the Grandmother, that she is next to die” (108). These example justifies that The Misfit does not have any regard for human life. The only people that he has are the two goons that help him murder people. The grandmother sees that The Misfit has never had anyone to take care of him. At the end of this story she tries reach out to him on a spiritual level, but he shoots her three times in the chest as soon as she touches

    Read More

  • Similarities Between A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Good Country People

    708 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the resolutions of “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “Good Country People,” and even “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, the reader realizes that people are not quite what we think they are (often in her stories, people are more evil than we think). In two of these stories, a character that readers learn to trust becomes the antagonist; although in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the opposite occurs. A man that Grandmother knows is evil and has developed a fear for becomes someone that the protagonist of the story trusts or at least sympathizes with. The idea that links all three stories is that people are not what they seem. This intertextualization establishes an idea that O’Connor is trying to emphasize to her readers. Further establishing the idea, O’Connor uses tone to create a universal atmosphere. Certain moments in O’Connor’s text seem ominous. Literary critic Henry McDonald seems to agree that “O’Connor’s theme of “the whole man” is present in all her fiction”(McDonald 274). For instance, in “Good Country People,” O’Connor’s tone helps establish the theme that is woven through “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and this story: as Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman are having a conversation, she says “Some people are more alike than others” even when the surrounding text does not match this. Davis J. Leigh explains that “almost all her central figures

    Read More

  • The Journey in A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor

    685 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Grandmother often finds herself at odds with the rest of her family. Everyone feels her domineering attitude over her family, even the youngest child knows that she's "afraid she'd miss something she has to go everywhere we go"(Good Man 2). Yet this accusation doesn't seem to phase the grandmother, and when it is her fault alone that the family gets into the car accident and is found by the Misfit, she decides to try to talk her way out of this terrible predicament.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    1091 Words  | 3 Pages

    Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner are both iconic writers. Their stories are often deals within the same works and different class of people. They both repeatedly focus on southern backdrops and characters, also deals with cultural corruption, and more commonly having conflicts between different generations in one’s family. These two writers never have a happy ending in the story: its either death or downfall of a man. Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily” have similar traits of their writing. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is about how a grandmother convinces her son to take her family to Tennessee but The Misfit kills them. “A Rose for Emily” is about Emily Grierson who is from a wealthy family.

    Read More

  • Diction In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    951 Words  | 2 Pages

    The grandmother says “I know you’re a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people,” showing how she is trying to find a shred of hope in a murderer. O’Connor’s use of southern diction and religious banter develop the grandmother away from superficiality and towards genuineness. The grandmother says “’Listen,’…’you shouldn’t call yourself The Misfit because I know you’re a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell.’” The Misfit replies “I pre-chate that, lady,’” by using the phonetic spelling instead of proper diction O’Connor is showing that the grandmother believes he is a fellow southerner. The grandmother is talking to The Misfit about salvation and she has an epiphany, O’Connor writes “His voice seemed to crack and the grandmother’s head cleared for an instant. She saw the man’s face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, ‘Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!’” After discussing religion and seeing his perspective the grandmother finally feels real sympathy for The Misfit; up until that point the grandmother had been trying to compliment and talk her way out of being killed along with the rest of her family. Unfortunately this is also when the struggle between good and evil ends with the grandmother being killed, “The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest.” The Misfit then says “‘She would of been a good woman’ … ‘if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.’” He realized that her gesture at that moment was out of pure kindness and

    Read More

  • A Good Man Is Hard To Find Religion Essay

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    The grandmother tries to convince the Misfit that he his a good person inside, and that Jesus can help him become a better human being. The grandmother thinks she is a “good christian” but she doesn't realize that he doesn't want to be a good person, he wants to do what he wants. She desperately wants him to reconsider his motives because in her mind she believes everyone can be good if you have Jesus, but that isn't the case for the Misfit. He just wants to be himself. "I don't want no hep," he said. "I'm doing all right by myself." He doesn't need or want anybody to help him make his decisions. The Misfit has seriously thought about religion and that it is possible that he could be saved, but he is not sure so he is confused by what he should do. If you are a criminal and someone is desperate for you to spare their life, if you are a somewhat sensible person you would be partially sympathetic towards others, especially if they say something that relates to you. Which is why the Misfit seems emotional towards the end of the story. He understands what the grandmother is talking about but he still chooses to be

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis Of A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    1459 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Misfit is the complete opposite of a typical hero, or “Good Man”, but he is honest, he is true to himself, and he knows that he is not good. When the Grandmother and the Misfit are talking, the Misfit is very mannerly towards the family he even apologizes towards the family: “I’m sorry I don’t have on a shirt before you ladies” (Ochshorn). The Misfit never lies about who he really is. He knows that he is not a good man, and he does not try to be something he is unable to be. The Grandmother is the complete opposite, she truly believes that she is good and lies to herself and everyone around her so she will be accepted. The Grandmother says to the Misfit, “I just know you’re a good man. You’re not a bit common” (O’Connor), to which he replies, “Nome, I ain’t a good man, but I ain’t the worst neither” (O’Connor). It is refreshing to see someone admit and know that they are not good, and that they will never be

    Read More

  • The Use of Violence in Flannery O'Connor's Stories

    1198 Words  | 3 Pages

    In A Good Man is Hard to Find, the grandmother and the Misfit both experience a life-changing event that leads to them having a clear understanding of who they should truly be. After the Misfit kills the rest of the family, the grandmother is left alone with the Misfit in the ditch. Once she sees the Misfit wearing her now dead son’s shirt, she is reminded that the Misfit is no worse than she is (Whitt 47). She is reminded of her son because of the shirt, but this thought inspires an even deeper understanding and thought beyond being confused as to why he is wearing that shirt (Whitt 47-48). She goes as far as to tell the Misfit “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” (Whitt 47). She realizes that her beliefs and thoughts of the old fashioned southern social class structure that everyone must be good or they must be beneath an individual do not make sense or is applicable when faced with a serious event in life such as death (Whitt 47). The Misfit is taken back by what the grandmother has said to him and quickly shoots her three times without thought, as if by instinct, “as if a snake had bitten him” (Whitt 48). The truth that the grandmother speaks is too much for the Misfit to the point that he violently tries to reject it. Even though the grandmother is dead...

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Good And Evil In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    1075 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Flannery O 'Connor 's short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, the theme of good vs. evil unravels throughout the series of tragic events. The Grandmother’s epiphany introduces the idea of morality and the validity is left to the interpretation of the reader. By questioning the characteristics of right and wrong, morality and religion become subjective to personal reality and the idea of what makes individuals character good or bad becomes less defined.

    Read More

More about Compare And Contrast A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Good Country People

Open Document