The Cross of Two Spiritual Paths: The Characterization of the Grandmother and the Misfit and How Their Rendezvous Connects Them Both to a Religious Awakening of Faith, Grace, and Salvation.
Obeying Pontius Pilate's orders, the Roman soldiers nailed Jesus onto a cross but not before ridiculing and physically beating him. At nine o' clock in the morning, the men proceeded to crucify him along with two robbers. One of the robbers joined the soldiers in lampooning Jesus while the other one asked for forgiveness in hopes of reserving his place in Heaven; within hours, all three men had died. The concepts of faith, death, and salvation exemplified in the aforementioned anecdote continually permeate the text of Flannery O'Connor's short stories. As exhibited in the aforesaid account, each man, by asking Jesus to bestow his grace upon him, possesses his own chance for salvation, but only one of the men actually seizes this opportunity; this closely resembles the final scene in which the two man characters of this Flannery O'Connor classic also encounter this opportunity for deliverance. In "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", Flannery O' Connor by utilizing the characterization of the Grandmother and the Misfit, in religious and moral terms, to underline the deep connection between the two which ultimately sets the stage for the final scene in which grace is received by both characters. Thus, the story, while portraying a static tale outweighed by its climatic ending, transforms into a more meaningful clash between the Grandmother's superficial beliefs and the Misfit's more profoundly felt involvement with Christ.
The Grandmother, through her actions and words, displays a superficial, impious faith. Her faith revolves around the concept t...
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...sonal convictions and skepticism of religion, has not realized his prospective grace but is beginning to understand the pathway that will lead him to salvation, attributable to the depths of introspective thought that the Misfit has contemplated. O'Connor creatively brings these two characters, who share the same religious trials and tribulations despite the semblance that they both display to the world, together for the purpose of complimenting and supplying one another with the "missing piece" to complete each other's "jigsaw puzzle" of salvation. This whole process begins with a person taking the initiative to accept grace: the Grandmother has already acknowledged this belief and has proceeded one step further to plant the seeds of religious comprehension into the "soil" of the Misfit's cerebrum, thus allowing him to "sprout up and grow" in his spiritual faith.
Although this story is told in the third person, the reader’s eyes are strictly controlled by the meddling, ever-involved grandmother. She is never given a name; she is just a generic grandmother; she could belong to anyone. O’Connor portrays her as simply annoying, a thorn in her son’s side. As the little girl June Star rudely puts it, “She has to go everywhere we go. She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day” (117-118). As June Star demonstrates, the family treats the grandmother with great reproach. Even as she is driving them all crazy with her constant comments and old-fashioned attitude, the reader is made to feel sorry for her. It is this constant stream of confliction that keeps the story boiling, and eventually overflows into the shocking conclusion. Of course the grandmother meant no harm, but who can help but to blame her? O’Connor puts her readers into a fit of rage as “the horrible thought” comes to the grandmother, “that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (125).
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
The granny and the misfit are two completely opposite characters that possess two different beliefs. The grandmother puts herself on a high pedestal and the way she calls the misfit ‘a good person’ based upon his family background gives the reader an idea of what the grandmother acknowledges to be considered as ‘good’. Self absorbed as sh...
In the short story “A Good Man is hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, Polite and religious are characteristics’ shown by a grandmother, however, underlying that are her
My grandmother has a certain look in her eyes when something is troubling her: she stares off in a random direction with a wistful, slightly bemused expression on her face, as if she sees something the rest of us can’t see, knows something that we don’t know. It is in these moments, and these moments alone, that she seems distant from us, like a quiet observer watching from afar, her body present but her mind and heart in a place only she can visit. She never says it, but I know, and deep inside, I think they do as well. She wants to be a part of our world. She wants us to be a part of hers. But we don’t belong. Not anymore. Not my brothers—I don’t think they ever did. Maybe I did—once, a long time ago, but I can’t remember anymore. I love my grandmother. She knows that. I know she does, even if I’m never able to convey it adequately to her in words.
The Grandmother often finds herself at odds with the rest of her family. Everyone feels her domineering attitude over her family, even the youngest child knows that she's "afraid she'd miss something she has to go everywhere we go"(Good Man 2). Yet this accusation doesn't seem to phase the grandmother, and when it is her fault alone that the family gets into the car accident and is found by the Misfit, she decides to try to talk her way out of this terrible predicament.
Grandma’s worship of Jesus and the “Good Lawd,” Joe Starks’ worship of himself, Mrs. Turner’s worship of white characteristics, and Janie’s worship of love, all stem from a lack of jurisdiction in the society they inhabit. All these Gods represent a need for something to believe in and work for: an ideal, which they wish to achieve, to aspire to. Each individual character is thus able to find himself or herself in the God that they worship. Grandma embodies the initial faith in the book. Her faith is in the Spirit and her allegiance is to Jesus and God.
Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is about the misfortunes a family experiences while embarking on a vacation, but it goes further to depict the divergence between the superficial conflict in everyday life and the true battles in life threatening situations. O’Connor’s use of tone, syntax, and diction helps to develop the characters and illustrate the struggle of good versus evil, shedding light on the harsh reality of the prevalence and depth of real evil.
The grandmother; is not godly, prayerful, or trustworthy but she is a troublesome character. She raised her children without spirutuality, because she is not a believer, she is Godless.
Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find is one of the most well-known short stories in American history. A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a disturbing short story that exemplifies grace in extremity as well as the threat of an intruder. The story tells of an elderly grandmother and her family who embark on a road trip to Florida. The grandmother is a stubborn old woman with a low sense of morality. While on the trip, the grandmother convinces her son to take a detour which results in a broken down car and an encounter with a convicted fugitive, The Misfit. Although the grandmother pleads for mercy, The Misfit kills off the rest of her family. Through the grace she finds in her extreme circumstance, the grandmother calls The Misfit her own and implores him to spare her life. The Misfit does not oblige her and states after her death, “She would have been a good woman if it had been someone to shoot her every day of her life.” Through Flannery O’Connor’s disturbing and shocking display of the grandmother’s demise, she gives the reader a sense of the threatening power of an intruder and the idea of extreme situations bringing about a state of grace. The reason for such a powerful work may have resulted from Flannery O’Connor’s religious upbringing as well as the state of the nation at the time.
...ite an interesting story that has a much greater meaning than just a fictional story. O’Conner has quite a theme in which she shows in the actions of the characters and the way the events unfold. The grandmother is very interesting woman. She believes that her conscience guides her through life. With this mentality, this makes her believe that she is so much better than everyone else. She also judges the lack of goodness in people she knows and doesn’t know at any opportunity she can get. She has this moral code that almost falls apart every time it gets challenged. This is completely different when it comes to criminal called the Misfit. He has a moral code that is not always right but no matter what happens, he sticks to it. He questions everything life has to offer but because of this, he takes everything he learns and appreciates everything it has to offer.
She creates these characters that are in a state of hubris (overbearing pride and a sense of invincibility towards fate) and therefore are ripe for catastrophe. She puts them in a moment of crisis in which their self-confidence is destroyed or they reevaluate their past lives. This method is emphasized through the main characters Joy and Grandmother; they both tried to use religion against their assailant as a means of escaping their doom. Joy who is an atheist begged the Bible salesman to return the wooden leg insisting that “you’re a Christian...you’re just like all of them…you’re a perfect Christian!” (Good Country 9), and Grandmother in her final moments begged the Misfit to pray and that he was fine people (A Good 384). These epiphanies involves the characters recognition that their “attackers” actions are a result of their hypocritical attitudes and hollow actions. They offer only lip service to spiritual concepts and then go back to their lives filled with materialistic gratification, not really concerned about the people that they affect. So the men refuse these gestures and their hypocrisy because the damage is already done and really they hold little worth to
Flannery O’Connor gave a talk about “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” in 1963 at Hollins College, Virginia, which was published as the essay, “The Element of Suspense In ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’” In this essay, O’Connor defined the reasons for using violence in her stories. To establish a basis of reason within the story, O’Connor stated “Much of my fiction takes its character from a reasonable use of the unreasonable, though the reasonableness may not always be apparent. The assumptions that underlie . . . are those of the central Christian mysteries” ("Suspense" 803). O’Connor placed her characters in seemingly unreasonable situations as a means of creating a sublime experience. Her beliefs were strongly evident in the collected body of her fiction. She commented that, “Belief, in my own case, is the engine that makes perception operate” ("Suspense" 803). Perhaps the strongest influence on her writing was her illness with lupus. O’Connor’s struggles with being ill and facing death certainly affected the creation of the characters who awaited a moment of grace.
In Flannery O 'Connor 's short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, the theme of good vs. evil unravels throughout the series of tragic events. The Grandmother’s epiphany introduces the idea of morality and the validity is left to the interpretation of the reader. By questioning the characteristics of right and wrong, morality and religion become subjective to personal reality and the idea of what makes individuals character good or bad becomes less defined.
Flannery O’Connor’s religious background influenced almost all her stories. She received criticism for her harsh representation of religion. Richard Giannone describes “A Good Man is Hard to Find” as “God’s transforming love by confronting the reader with a condition of true goodness amid the stark brutality of serial murder” (46). In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor frequently references religious symbols to describe the characters and their actions. Toward the end of the play the grandmother frantically tries to persuade The Misfit to pray and that Jesus would help him. The Misfit replied stating, “Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead, and he shouldn’t have done it. He thown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do ...