A Good Man Is Hard To Find Analysis

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Mary Flannery O’Connor was a Southern American writer and essayist who grew up in Georgia during the 1900’s. Her faith as a Roman Catholic influenced most of her writings, as she wrote a lot about morality, faith, and ethics. O’Connor’s style of writing is mostly Southern Gothic fiction, although she didn’t like that label and preferred to her writings as “Catholic Realism.” The characters in her stories are depicted as being grotesque. This can be seen in her story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Her purpose of writing this story is to convey to the reader that certain moments in a person’s life can cause a transformation in their personality, demeanor, and beliefs. O’Connor narrates to the reader through the use of symbolism, diction, and tone the irony and meaning of “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” This leaves the question whether or not a good man or woman is hard to find.
To begin with, the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” takes place in Georgia. It’s about a father, mother, and two children who are planning a vacation to Florida. The grandmother who lives with the family doesn’t want to go to Florida. She wants to go to Tennessee instead and uses manipulation as a means to try and get her way. “Now look here Bailey . . . Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida . . . I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it” (O’Connor 134). This quote establishes a sense of darkness, fair warning, and uncertainty. As well as, the grandmother trying to manipulate her son’s decision of going to Florida by using scare tactics on him. Manipulation is one theme brought out in this story. The story is told in the third person, limited omnisci...

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...ch O’Connor speaks about. At that moment the grandmother’s character seems to miraculously change from being selfish and superficial to loving and christian-like. That is when The Misfit shoots her. Armond Boudreaux an Assistant Professor of English at East Georgia College, states that “O’Connor’s stories follow the same basic plot: a proud main character, often bigoted and usually a woman, finds redemption when an act of violence is committed against her” (paragraph 1). The grandmother is indeed a proud main character who found redemption at the moment before her death.
Finally, the story concludes with The Misfit saying, “She would have been a good woman . . . if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” (O’Connor 146). The Misfit realized that when faced with death the grandmother had the ability to be a good woman. Her son and his entire

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