A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Who’s More Authentic? Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a short story that makes readers question what truly makes a good person. The grandmother in the story believes she knows what a good person is, but the Misfit challenges her morals which makes her question what makes a good person. Both the Misfit and the grandmother judge people based on their own moral code, but one of their moral code is more authentic than the other. The Misfits encounter with the grandmother, makes her question her faith and values. In her final moments of life does the Misfit make the grandmother see what really makes a person good? The grandmother doesn’t develop in the story until she faces life or death at the end, and she would have never

The misfit believes that no matter the crime committed the punishment is always disproportionate and that the crime ultimately in the end doesn’t matter. The Misfit’s only motivation to commit crime is nothing but for the pleasure of destroying things, out of "meanness." He isn’t affected by his crimes, but this shows how his values are solid because his emotions don’t waiver between crimes. He has thought about religion and life deeply, this also makes his values strong because he has contemplated what makes a person good or not. For example, he references Jesus raising the dead, stating that if Jesus did raise the dead than people would follow him because he is God, but if Jesus didn’t people would me more like the Misfit where there is only pleasure in meanness and there’s no point to life. The Misfit seemed to take Jesus more seriously and has thought about life more in depth than the grandmother, which makes him and his values more

The grandmother has a moment grace at her last moment of life, the grandmother states “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children.” This is the only moment in the story where the grandmother is truly authentic and in touch with her religion. In this moment the grandmother finds redemption because she let go of her petty and evil views. After talking about Jesus, the grandmother finds it in herself to love the Misfit despite his evilness which is what Jesus preaches. The grandmother reaching out to touch the Misfit is her way of finding it inside herself to pity the Misfit. She realizes in her moment of grace, that Jesus teaches that people should love everyone especially their enemies, which is way the grandmother starts to pity the Misfit. The Misfit makes that comment after he kills her, “she would have been a good woman…if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” In this comment, he means that if someone would have challenged her values before their meeting, then she might have been a good person because she would have found redemption before them and not had been killed. The Misfit comments supports the idea that the grandmother wouldn’t have found redemption if she didn’t encounter