A Good Man is Hard to Find

After the end of World War 2, the Red Scare took hold in the United States. A nationwide fear of a Communist takeover grabbed the American psyche. Americans acknowledged a sense of fear from intruders entering and changing the lives of individuals. A contemporary writer emerged who would later be considered one of Americas greatest fictional writers. Flannery O’ Connor’s use of an intruder in, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” characterized by a fall from pride, secured her position as one of the most influential writers of her time.

Flannery O’Connor was born on March 25, 1925 in Savannah, Georgia to Regina Cline and Edward F. O’Connor. Born into a family of two of Georgia’s oldest Catholic families, Flannery O’Connor was raised to be a devout Roman Catholic. She began schooling in the city;s parochial schools. O’Connor continued schooling at Peabody Laboratory School in 1938 after her family moved to Milledgeville, Georgia. When she was 15, Flannery O’Connor, and only child, lost her father to Systematic Lupus Erythematosus, the very disease that would later take her own life. Flannery O’Connor attended day school at the Georgia State College for Women. Here she was a member of the accelerated 3 year program. She took her studies seriously and was even the editor of the Corinthian, Georgia State College for Women’s literary magazine. O’Connor contributed several works of fiction, essays and poems to the Corinthian. She majored in social science and took a number of English courses. In 1945, she accepted a scholarship from the State University of Iowa. O’Connor soon sought out the counsel of Paul Engle, the head of Writer’s Workshop, to ask permission to enter the master’s program in creative writing. O’Connor excelled in school a...

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...nds and families and fired from their jobs. However, the climate of fear and repression began to settle in the late 1950’s. For Flannery O’Connor, this time provided the perfect opportunity to write about the many mysteries of life. O’Connor used the intruder figure in her writing to convey a message about a threat entering and changing one’s life (Short Stories).

Flannery O’Connor’s use of an intruder in, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” characterized by a fall from pride, secured her position as one of the most influential writers of her time. Flannery O’Connor was the first writer born in the twentieth century to have her works collected and published by the Library of America. O’Connor is viewed as a writer who changed American through her works of literature. Her vivid characterization, rigid moral vision and shrewd satire set her short stories apart from others.