Biblical Influence from the Hand and Mind of Flannery O’Connor

Biblical Influence from the Hand and Mind of Flannery O’Connor

This glimpse into the 1955 short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” will link the reader to Flannery O’Connor and her use of spiritual symbolism. The story is representative of and a commentary on her religious attitudes and beliefs.

Some background information about the author will illuminate choices she made in execution of this narrative. O’Connor was a Catholic woman in the American South, a distinct minority in her time. Only “27.9% of white females in the 1957 civilian population reported belonging to the Roman Catholic church” (Rosten 334). A 1971 Gallup Poll showed “most of the Southern population (84%) [was] Protestant” (Rosten 329). Membership in this church made her likely to accept literally the teachings of her faith: “What a Catholic believes by faith, he believes absolutely” (Rosten 51). The author’s core values appear in and behind her works.

An overview of this story reveals a three generational Southern family of flawed characters that embarks on a vacation road trip. The father allows his children and his mother to push him into an unplanned and ill-fated aside. The inconsiderate and manipulative ways of the grandmother bring the family to encounter a major conflict. A trio of men joins the group and participates in the climax. Critical consensus is that the author employed elements of her faith throughout her vivid stories: “Miss O’Connor, for all her apparent preoccupation with the visible scene, is also fiercely concerned with the moral, even theological, problems” (Gordon 23).

O’Connor uses southern-flavored humor, rich in detail and bordering on absurdity to mark the transition between scenes or moods in the story. Grandmother’s smuggli...

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... Lexington: Kentucky UP, 1971. Print.

Gordon, Caroline. “With a Glitter of Evil.” Critical Essays on Flannery O’Connor. Eds. Melvin J. Friedman and Beverly Lyon Clark. Boston: GK Hall and Co., 1985. 23-4. Print.

Kessler, Edward. Flannery O’Connor and the Language of Apocalypse. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1986. Print.

Kirk, Connie Ann. A Critical Companion to Flannery O’Connor. New York: Facts on File, 2008. Print.

O‘Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Literature: Craft & Voice-Volume I: Fiction. 1st Edition. Eds. Nicholas Delbanco and Alan Cheuse. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 429-437.Print.

Orvell, Miles. Invisible Parade; The Fiction of Flannery O‘Connor. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1972. Print.

Rosten, Leo, ed. Religions of America: Ferment and Faith in an Age of Crisis: A New Guide and Almanac. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975. Print.