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a good man is hard to find analysis essay
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There are plenty of on this earth who are egocentric. They feel that as if every decision they make is important and feel as if they are more important than everyone else. Flannery O 'Connor explores this type of mindset in her short story A Good Man is Hard to Find. The story focuses on a family of six who are going on a trip from Georgia to Tennessee after the Grandmother reads an article about a serial killer heading to Florida. After stopping to eat, the Grandmother convinces her son Bailey to take a detour; the car crashes, afterwards; they encounter the serial killer and then he kills the entire family. Throughout the story, the Grandmother exemplifies that she may be egocentric, so O 'Connor 's character of the Grandmother feels that When she sees the little black boy who was not wearing pants, she proceeds to call him a "pickaninny" and "a negro". Then she puts herself in higher position, claiming that he doesn’t have pants because she felt that black people don’t have things like they do in the country. 50 's were a time of discrimination against black people because they could not receive a high paying job, education, and vote. She does not believe change which is shown in conversations with the kids and with Red Sammy. When she speaks to them, she constantly uses phrases such as "back in my day", "back in my time. With evolving knowledge and technology everything is not expected to stay the same. During the conversation with Red Sammy, she then blames the problems of America on Europe. She said that European countries depended on American support from communism during the Cold While planning the trip, she uses plenty excuses in order to go to Tennessee to visit her friends. She complains that kids have already been to Florida and needs to "be broad". She used The Misfit as her last resort to go to Tennessee. When leaving to go on the road, she sneaks her cat Pitty Sing, fearing "she may miss him too much". She could have her cat with someone. After The Misfit starts killing the family, she proceeds to beg for him to spare her life. This show that she is willing to live alone as long as she 's spared. She tells him "You 've got good blood". All her begging proved futile as she was shot. To me, her ultimate point was when said she would have Mr. Teagarden. Mr. Teagarden died wealthy from buying a Coca-Cola stock when the business started. The way she said that it seems as if she wanted to marry him because he had money rather loving him for being a gentleman. Though O 'Connor 's use of characterization, she managed to explore the egocentric mind of the Grandmother. She always wanted to be the center of attention, she was prejudice and believed things should stay the same, and she was very selfish. While she thinks she 's above everyone else, she felt that the world revolves around
The Grandmother is a bit of a traditionalist, and like a few of O’Connor’s characters is still living in “the old days” with outdated morals and beliefs, she truly believes the way she thinks and the things she says and does is the right and only way, when in reality that was not the case. She tends to make herself believe she is doing the right thing and being a good person when in actuality it can be quite the opposite. David Allen Cook says in hi...
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.
In the short story, 'A Good Man is Hard to Find', the main character is the grandmother. Flannery O'Connor, the author, lets the reader find out who the grandmother is by her conversations and reactions to the other characters in the story. The grandmother is the most important character in the story because she has a main role in the stories principal action. This little old lady is the protagonist in this piece. We learn more about her from her direct conversation with the son, Bailey, her grandchildren, June Star and John Wesley, and the Misfit killer. Through these conversations, we know that she is a lady raised from a traditional background. In the story, her attitude changes more than once to accommodate the surroundings that she is in. With the data provided, we can tell that the grandmother goes from not wanting to go to Florida, to anxious to go, and in the end, I felt as if she went off the deep end. All of the sudden, the only thing she really concentrates on is Jesus and her not being killed.
O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." 1955. Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. 4th ed. Ed. Robert DiYanni. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998. 193-203.
To buttress this she pointed out that even at the grandmothers death misfit confirmed her to be a good woman in his statement “she would have been a good woman if she was to face death every minute of her life” (437). In contrast to her opinion Stephen Bandy a notable literally critics in one of his articles “One of my babies “: The Misfit and the Grandmother” he compared the characters of both and argued that despite the fact that O`Conner claimed the grandmother was merely filled with “prejudice” of her time, He described the grandmother as racist, busy body and utterly self-absorbed. When she saw that her child and grandchildren was been killed tried to manipulate Misfit to spare her own life whereas she was the one that lead them to their death.
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
"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is a short story written by the Flannery O 'Connor and was officially published in 1955. The author Flannery O 'Connor was raised in a Roman Catholic family, went to a Catholic school for 16 years, and had a strong Catholic faith. Most of O’Connor’s work of literature indicated her Roman Catholic beliefs; "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is one of the stories that contain a religious message behind it. The story is mainly about two different characters; the grandmother and The Misfit, who met each other by a chance in the middle of nowhere on the road. The grandmother is known as the “good,” innocent, religious, old lady and The Misfit is known as the “evil” escaped criminal that has no faith in God. The focus of this essay is “grace,” in personal knowledge; God has the power to allow every human being “grace” whether good or bad, and has the ability to let anyone; good or bad go to heaven. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” when the grandmother reaches out to touch The Misfit and calls him one of her children “a child of God” hoping to change his emotions and stop him from killing her, that moment is called a “moment of
Flannery O’ Connor’s story: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is the tale of a vacation gone wrong. The tone of this story is set to be one irony. The story is filled with grotesque but meaningful irony. I this analysis I will guide you through the clues provided by the author, which in the end climax to the following lesson: “A Good Man” is not shown good by outward appearance, language, thinking, but by a life full of “good” actions.
Regardless of the grandmother’s attempt to reason with him by praying, he has a profound concept of Jesus. He tells the grandmother about his anger and lack of faith towards Jesus. As the Misfit compares himself to Jesus, the Misfit seems upset because they have “papers” on him and not on Jesus (O 'Connor 151). Even though the Misfit is a cold blooded murderer, he is interpreted as a wise man who is almost superior to the others. The Misfit is taking on the role of God when he chooses to make his call and kill the family. Not only does he make a decision for the family to die, but he also judges the grandmother: “She would of been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life" (O’Connor 153). In this case, the Misfit does not believe the grandmother is a “good” woman considering her beliefs. However, when she was in a life and death situation, she embraced her faith in
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.
The Misfit is clearly a criminal, but he calls himself “The Misfit” because he “can’t make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment” (429). The Misfit deflected responsibility from himself and refuses to bear the results of his conflicts. Furthermore, the grandmother continuously declares that she is a so called “lady” though she is clearly racist, and is the reason why her family gets murdered. The grandmother made her son that she wanted to see until she realized that it was in a different state. In addition to all of this, she begs for her life, but never asks The Misfit to spare her family. In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, it says “Throw me that shirt, Bobby Lee,” The Misfit said. The shirt came flying at him and landed on his shoulder and he put it on. The grandmother couldn’t name what the shirt reminded her of” (429). The grandmother did not even recognize that The Misfit had killed her son and taken his
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
Though the grandmother dies in the end, O’Connor’s use of foreshadowing, characterization, and a distinct point of view lead me to believe this is the beginning of a different life for The Misfit. After he kills the grandmother The Misfit immediately starts cleaning his glasses, an indication that he sees the world in a different way. He had originally thought there was no pleasure in anything but cruelty, eventually the Misfit decides “It’s no real pleasure in life.” He had wanted to see Jesus raise the dead more than anything, and The Misfit ultimately got his wish; the grandmother had a last minute relief from her unbearable pomposity and then died, presumably redeemed. And the Misfit finds a glimpse of human empathy and compassion from the last woman we would have expected it from.
Since the beginning of the story, the readers have come to known the grandmother as a spiteful old lady due to her repulsive and deceitful attitudes toward others. Right from the start, we can see the grandmother using her manipulative tactics on her family. “The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind.” (O’Connor 1) This initial quote shows an early indication that the grandmother is determined to obtain whatever she wants and will not allow anything to get in her way, even if it means manipulating her own family. This line already suggests that the grandmother may have sly motives concealed in her mind. “Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is a loose from the Federal Pen a...
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