More handpicked essays just for you.
Summary of a good man is hard to find theme
Literary analysis of "a good man is hard to find
What is the theme of a good man is hard to find
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The Mysterious Misfit
The story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor, focuses on the interaction between a grandmother from Georgia and The Misfit, a self-admitted convict who has recently escaped from jail. The Misfit is first introduced in a newspaper article being read by the grandmother: “This fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people” (257). It seems clear that The Misfit must be a cold-hearted killer who is a danger to be near. When an unfortunate string of events finds the grandmother and her family trapped by The Misfit and his two accomplices, the reader begins to learn more about this complicated character.
As the grandmother finds herself at the mercy of The Misfit, she attempts to befriend him by insisting that he is a good man and must come from nice people. The Misfit agrees that he does come from the “finest people in the world” (263), but that he is not a good man. “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 without asking about it and it’s others has to know why it is, and this
Clark 2 boy is one of the latters. He’s going to be into everything!” (264). Here we get an insight into his personality. He may not just be a thoughtless killer. He may actually act the way he does because he has thought about things rather seriously, challenging religious beliefs and whether he should follow them or not.
Several times in the story the Misfit tries to victimize himself. He says he “ain’t recalled to this day” (265) why he got sent to the penitentiary even though there seems to be proof that he killed h...
... middle of paper ...
...anger that The Misfit reveals throughout the story draws sympathy from the grandmother and even from the reader. He believes that if he had actually witnessed Jesus firsthand raising the dead he would be a complete believer and a better person: “I wisht I had of been there. It ain’t right I wasn’t there because if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn’t be like I am now” (267). The Misfit’s strong and consistent beliefs are what seem to guide his actions and when the grandmother recognizes his strength she finally recognizes her weaknesses and undergoes a sudden change of heart, reaching out to the man who killed those she loved and is about to kill her. That final act of kindness by the grandmother may have struck home with The Misfit who, after declaring that there is no pleasure but meanness, decides “It’s no real pleasure in life” (267).
(862 words)
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.
Reading this part from “A Good Man is Hard to Find” I would think from The Misfit saying this would really be him feeling sorry that he killed his father. Nevertheless if you are coming at this quote from another point you could think he was losing his real father and also god at the same time. Which would make him feel guilty and become the killer he is today. So before losing his father and becoming a killer he could have been a perfect church boy like anybody would be.
“You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?” the grandmother said while dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. Looking at the ground, the Misfit says, “I would hate to have to.” “Listen,” the grandmother almost screamed, “I know you are a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people.” It all happened so fast. The car had rolled and wrecked. A murderer was in the family’s presence. The grandmother was begging for grace from the Misfit in every way possible. The character of the selfish grandmother, in Flannery O 'Connor 's short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” tries to use her manipulative ways to fight
After the accident that the grandmother had unintentionally caused by manipulating the image of a nonexistent house into her family’s head, they run into the Misfit. No one else in the family knew who he was or anything about him. They all thought someone had come to their rescue and was going to fix the car, but nothing gets over on the grandmother. Blatantly putting the whole family in danger she blurts out, “’You’re the Misfit!’…’Yes’m…but it would have been better for all of you, lady, if you hadn’t of reckernized me’” (192). At this point in time, she knows that she is going to die, trying to save herself and not caring about the rest of her family clearly as she has witnessed the Misfit’s goons kill off her whole family, she tries to manipulate him. She brings up that he is a “good man at heart” (192) and telling him if he “would pray…Jesus would help” (194). That was just simply her trying to plea for her life, but when she realized she was getting nowhere her “head cleared for an instant” (196), she knew this was an opportunity to try and manipulate the Misfit into letting her go, to make him feel like he didn’t have to be a killer anymore, to comfort him “she reached out and touched him on the shoulder” (196). The Misfit jolted away and shot her three times in the chest because he saw through her manipulative ways which if clear when he
The grandmother is portrayed as being a selfish self-involved woman who wants her way, a person with little memory, just a basic old woman living with her only son. The Misfit on the other hand is a man who feels he has done no wrong, but has just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but in the end comes too close to the truth, which scares him.
Misfit clearly understood the difference between good and bad unlike the grandmother but there philosophical positions, his by determination and hers by accident are not so far apart. Hence the statement “Why you are one of my babies” (135) indeed he is one of her babies for her lack of values is his lack as well. These two faces are so close like a mirror images. The Misfit can be said to be completely evolved from the
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
In several different scenarios, the grandmother is shown as manipulative, snobbish, and slightly senile and judges based on appearance. For example, when the family meets Red Sam at the gas station, he mentions his tendency to allow complete strangers to charge gas, and he is curious why he would allow strangers like the grandmother to do so, and the grandmother replies, "Because you're a good man" (427). The grandmother makes this determination with a very small amount of knowledge of who Red Sam is, and without any information or significant insight about him as a person. Additionally, after the accident happens and the misfit makes his first appearance, the grandmother immediately notices his ability to put the family at ease with genuine kindness. This evaluation by the grandmother motivates her to compliment the dangerous criminal, and she even goes as far to call him a good man. While it is likely she is just attempting to earn approval with the misfit, it is still another example of the grandmother making shallow generalizations based on outward appearances and behavior without knowing the person. Furthermore, irony is strategically placed in the story when the grandmother encounters the misfit and calls out to him that he was her baby, indicating that she saw herself mirrored in the demeanor of the misfit. Consequently, the misfit mentions that she would have been a good woman, “If there had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”
He’s the most dangerous criminal, and the Grandmother knows that. It seems she wants to buy herself time by having a conversation with The Misfit. The Misfit seems to be having a nice conversation because he was talking about his life and the meaning behind his name. He explains in their conversation why he calls himself “The Misfit”, according to the story, “I can’t make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment.”. So, he named himself The Misfit, because of the wrong things he had done in the past. He talked about how his dad had something to do with him being what he is. “My daddy said I was a different breed of dog from my brothers and sisters.” It seems that his father knew he was different in a bad way and he expresses it with his son The Misfit. For him, murdering people is only to give them a punishment they deserved, but killing the Grandmother is justified as the ultimate punishment for her sins of manipulation and deviousness. According to the Article from Bethea, “like Satan, The Misfit is an anti-Christ. Jesus loved children, whereas children make the anti-Christ Misfit ‘nervous’’. The Misfit has already directed the execution of the Grandmother's entire family, and it must be obvious to all, including reader and Grandmother, that she is the next to die. But she struggles on. Grasping at any appeal, and hardly aware of what she is saying, the
When one first begins to read A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor, one is assailed by the humorous petty grievances of a mother living under her son’s roof disrespected by her grandchildren and lonely in a house filled with people, clutching at memories of days long passed similar to the Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie. As the story unfolds one begins to see the indifference of Bailey toward his family in general and especially his mother—rightly so, as the ‘old lady’ nagged her son and his family to the point of hilarity and rib-hurtin’ laughter had the cat stayed in the bag and the car did not leave the road. This interesting story of a mentally abused woman slighted by her family, who makes the fatal error in judgment by smuggling a cat into the automobile resulting in the unforeseen horror delved upon them by the escaped convict, ‘Misfit’ and his cohorts culminating in a self-fulfilled prophecy—negative thoughts give naissance to deleterious actions.
As I read Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, I find myself being completely consumed by the rich tale that the author weaves; a tragic and ironic tale that concisely and precisely utilizes irony and foreshadowing with expert skill. As the story progresses, it is readily apparent that the story will end in a tragic and predictable state due to the devices which O’Connor expertly employs and thusly, I find that I cannot stop reading it; the plot grows thicker with every sentence and by doing so, the characters within the story are infinitely real in my mind’s eye. As I consider these factors, the story focuses on two main characters; that of the grandmother, who comes across as self-centered and self-serving and The Misfit, a man, who quite ingeniously, also appears to be self-centered and self-serving. It is the story behind the grandmother, however, that evidence appears to demonstrate the extreme differences between her superficial self and the true character of her persona; as the story unfolds, and proof of my thought process becomes apparently clear.
“A Good man is hard to find,” is about a family who decide to go on a trip to Florida. The story revolves around a self absorbed grandmother who loves to talk about how everything used to be back in her day and takes the time to dress herself so that “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady (358).” She sneaks the family cat with her despite her son’s disapproval of bringing the creature along violating her boundaries to how a lady would act. The family encounters an accident along the way and happens to come across ‘The Misfit,’ a runaway criminal. Using ‘The Misfit’ as a tool, O’ Connor sends a message to her readers of how hypocritical a person can be when it comes to belief.
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
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...
While analyzing the grotesque character in A Good Man is Hard to Find many things stood out. First the grotesque character’s name was "the Misfit." On page 11, he defines the meaning of his name by stating that, "he couldn't make what he did wrong fit with his punishment." This means that he considers himself a "misfit" not defined as an outcast, but defined as if he were unexplainable. His character is smart because he learns from his mistakes, but he also escaped from the Federal Penitentiary. On page 10 his character is trying to recollect what his crime was, as he is going through his thoughts with the grandmother he states that he wouldn't sign anything he could never get a copy off because that is why he was in the penitentiary in the