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Good man is hard to find character analysis
Analysis of a good man is hard to find b
Kinds of symbolism in a good man is hard to find
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When people do bad things, or have bad thoughts does this make them a bad person? This is a loaded question when thinking about a couple characters in a great fictional short story A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Mary Flannery O’Connor. The well-dressed grandmother (by name only) can be judgmental, dishonest and demanding. She will rally thoughts in her mind, and try to convince others around her what she believes in true. They call a violent man the Misfit; he has the need to kill. Where is self-aware of his actions, the grandmother is not. Bailey (the father) wants to take his wife and three children (baby, John Wesley and June Star) to visit Florida, but the grandmother did not want to go. She kept insisting they go see some of her family …show more content…
The mother put in some money to play some music; she played the Tennessee Waltz. The grandmother asked her son Bailey if he would dance with her, he just looked at her with no response. June wanted to tap dance and asked her mom to put some music in she could tap to. After playing music, Sammy (owner of the restaurant) sat down with the family and proceeded to say you don’t know who to trust now days. He said he let some guys charge gas one day and did not know why he did that; the grandmother said it was because he was a good man. Sammy asked if they heard about the Misfit escaping and said he would not be surprised if he did not stop in to his restaurant. Sammy said “a good man is hard to find,” people used to leave their home unlocked and not worry about anyone coming in on their family. They got back on the road for a while; the grandmother was napping then awake to remember a plantation being close by. The children wanted to stop, but Bailey did not want to waste any drive time to stop and look at the …show more content…
It had three men inside; the driver began to gaze at the family. The driver got out of the car and stood beside it. All three men had guns; the children screamed again saying “we had an ACCIDENT.” The kids started to make him nervous with the questions they were asking; so he told the mother to get the kids over beside her. June asked him why he was telling them what to do. The grandmother thinks she recognizes the driver; then it hit her that he is the Misfit. She stood and made it known to him that she knew who he was. The Misfit said it would have been better if they had not recognized him. Bailey said something harsh enough to his mother that shocked everyone. Grandmother began to cry while the Misfit said not to get upset, because some men say things they don’t mean. The grandmother continues to convince the Misfit that he is not a bit common and could see good in his eyes. His parents were both good people, but told him he was a different kind of person. Misfit had Bobby Lee take Bailey and John Wesley in the woods, June was screaming for her daddy. Later after grandmother continued to talk to Misfit about Jesus, they heard a gunshot then another; grandmother screamed for Bailey. The mother was breathing heavy; Misfit asked them to take the mother and June to the woods with her husband. Later they hear a gunshot then
In today’s society, people are so concerned about others people life’s that they lose the real meaning to theirs. A Good Man is Hard to Find is a great example of that. The short story was about a grandmother that lived her life pointing out other people’s defects but had not realized her own. The short story was first published in 1959, and it all started with a family planning a road trip to Florida. Although, the grandmother wanted to go to Tennessee, her son, Bailey insisted in going to Florida. As they were traveling to Florida, the grandmother started to talk about an old house that she thought was close by. As a result, it caused the family to deviate the road they were on due to a tantrum the kids made. The grandmother then realized that the house was in Tennessee and not in Georgia, as a result it caused Bailey to lose control of the car and crash. As they were checking if everyone were okay a car pulled over besides them, and 3 men got out all carrying guns. Quickly, the grandmother recognizes the driver as The Misfit, as a result it led to everyone dying in the hands of the driver with his two accomplices. What I got from the literature is that life is too short to live pointing out others defects. Before people point out others defects, they might want to take into consideration and examine their defects. For example, the grandmother was too concerned about others defects that she did not realize that her defects were just as bad since she was selfish, racist, and arrogant.
In Paul Tillich’s 1957 work Dynamics of Faith, he mentions that there are six major components of faith. These six components of faith describe the Franciscan perspective of “faith”. According to Tillich, the first component of faith is “the state of being ultimately concerned”. The second component of faith is that it is supposed to be at the center of all of our personal lives and everything that we do throughout our own individual lives. The third component of faith is that we should have an awareness for “infinite” things such as God himself. The fourth component of faith is that we need to understand that faith can act as fear, fascination, or both of these qualities at the same time. The fifth component of faith is that doubt is a major product that will always exist with faith. The last component of faith is that we need a community in order to have a “language of faith”.
The grandmother is portrayed as being a selfish self-involved woman who wants her way, a person with little memory, just a basic old woman living with her only son. The Misfit on the other hand is a man who feels he has done no wrong, but has just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but in the end comes too close to the truth, which scares him.
As they speak with one another The Misfit collectively sends members of the family into the woods. Before long the family is all killed and only the grandmother remains. At this point the reader can sense what will happen next. The grandmother is becoming deeply religious as her death nears her. Finally the grandmother realizes she is no better than The Misfit and touches him on the shoulder. O’Connor demonstrates the dominant grandmother finally does not get her way. She is shot three times and thrown into the ditch soon after (Bloom
The way the grandmother connects with the misfit at the end of the story reinforces how similar they are despite being so outwardly different. The title of “Misfit” which he had given himself, was not his exclusively as an even greater misfit lay dead at his feet. It is this ending that lifts the tone of the story from one of narrow-minded bigotry and bleak and gratuitous violence to one of hope and the possibility of redemption, which is undoubtedly the author’s message.
The story examines fate and code of conduct of the Misfit and the grandmother. The story is thought provoking, disturbing and challenges one's perspective of what one may consider right or wrong. There is also a degree of selfishness behaviors that raises questions about the characters ability to show empathy freely despite their disposition. The Misfit affirmed his code of conduct by an injustice, he is not able to recall the crime and there is no paperwork to substantiate the crime. He said, "I call myself The Misfit, because I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment" (O'Connor, 1953). Therefore, his moral code is not about what is right or wrong, but what he perceived as gratifying. The question is, whether
...this is after she figures out whom he is. The Misfit has all of the Grandmother’s family escorted into the woods and killed. And as the story ends he takes the Grandmothers life when she touches him on the shoulder.
A family is going on a trip to Florida, but the grandma tries to convince them to go to Tennessee instead after reading an article about “The Misfit”. The Misfit is an escaped criminal who is allegedly going to Florida. On the way to Florida, Bailey, the grandmother’s son, decides to take a short detour to a house that the grandmother had talked about. The family got in a car accident and became stranded on the side of the road. Finally, a car stops to help the family. The grandma recognizes on of the men who stopped as the Misfit. The Misfit then kills the family in groups; first the boys, then the girls and the baby, excluding the grandmother. The grandmother tries to talk the Misfit out of killing her, but she eventually ends up being killed too.
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...
The grandmother has never truly understood what being saved means. She is also ignorant to what salvation is. The Misfit is missing the ability to empathize and bind with other people. He does not hold respect for human life. In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, it says “She would of been a good woman, The Misfit said, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” (430). In “‘One of My Babies’: The misfit and the grandmother”, written by Stephen C. Bandy, it says “The Misfit has already directed the execution of the Grandmother’s entire family, and it must be obvious to all including reader and the Grandmother, that she is next to die” (108). These example justifies that The Misfit does not have any regard for human life. The only people that he has are the two goons that help him murder people. The grandmother sees that The Misfit has never had anyone to take care of him. At the end of this story she tries reach out to him on a spiritual level, but he shoots her three times in the chest as soon as she touches
According to Frederick Asals, the first half of the story serves a significant purpose as it informs the audience that the family’s journey to Florida is only a “mere empty movement through space” (42). Prior to the car accident, the family acts out of vanity and disobedience despite believing they are devote Christians. Through their actions and behaviors, O’Connor reveals that they are heading down a path of destruction. T.W. Hendricks examines the structure of the family and their relationships with each other, he comments that “the structure of the family is in disarray” (203). The patriarch of the family, Bailey, despises his mother and prefers to overlook her presence by participating in self-absorption. In comparison, his wife does not pay attention to her external surroundings, but simply puts sole focus on her infant child. Furthermore, she and her husbands are parents t...
I am doing my short story analysis on Mary Flannery O’Conner’s, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. Written in 1953 the story was influenced by her Catholic faith and southern living. She wrote, “The stories are hard because there is nothing harder or less sentimental than Christian realism,” (The Habit of Being, p. 90) Much of Flannery’s story’s had insight into man’s fallen nature and his eventual redemption. Mary called her work, “stories about original sin.”
...nd shot Grandmother pleads and bargains with “The Misfit”. This plea-bargaining draws to a climax when the Grandmother says “Why, your one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” “She reached out and touched him on the shoulder.”(218) This stirs something in “the misfit” and he snaps back and shoots her.
On a day where the weather was not too cold or too hot and almost perfect for traveling, a family of six begins their journey to vacation in Florida (O’ Connor 450). Bailey, Bailey’s wife, the baby, John Wesley, June Star, and the grandmother all squeeze into the same car together. The grandmother is portrayed as the protagonist character of the story and is seen as being in the way and not being able to keep her opinions to herself. Unknown to the other individuals in the vehicle, the grandmother brought along her cat, Pitty Sing, who ended up being the main cause of their sudden wreck in Georgia (O’ Connor 449, 454). The accident created a chance meeting with a serial killer named the “Misfit” who was on the loose from federal prison, and each member of the family dies. The past events and present actions of the protagonist (the grandmother), the antagonist (the Misfit), and the foil (Bailey) characters of the story heavily influenced the deadly
In order to convince her son, she tells him about a criminal, The Mistif, who is very dangerous, gets loose, and heads toward Florida (O’Connor 1). The family ends up heading to Florida, and during the trip the grandmother remembers about a plantation nearby. She manipulates the kids in order for them to convince their father to deviate and stop by that plantation because “she knew that Bailey would not be willing to lose any time looking at an old house” (O’Connor 45). To make the kids want to see that house by the plantation she tells them “there was a secret panel in [that] house” but she “[was] not telling the truth but wishing that she were” (O’Connor 45). Beiley ends up being convinced by the kids. On their way to the plantation they suffer a car accident and are helped by “The Mistif” himself. Afraid, the grandmother again tries to use her manipulative “power” by trying to convince the criminal that he is “"a good man” (O’Connor 98) and that If he “would pray, Jesus would help [him]."(O’Connor 118). The grandmother nowhere in the story seemed to be religious and she only used “Jesus” as a way to get away from that tense situation and make the criminal not want to kill her family. In the end, all her manipulation is of no use because The Mistif not only kills her entire family but also shoots her three