Religion In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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The short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, revolves around the relationship in dialogue between the grandmother of the travelling family and The Misfit, the serial killer that oversees the murder of this family. Throughout the process of the grandmother attempting to persuade The Misfit not to dispatch the desperate travelers, both characters turn to religion as a means of justifying the course of their lives. While The Misfit and the grandmother are struggling to make sense of their lives and going through times of tension, they both become frustrated with what they perceive to be religion taking control in their lives. Regarding religion, this story suggests that when times become difficult it is easy for one to lose …show more content…

As he proceeds through brief insights on his past, he illuminates the reader and the grandmother on clues as to where he began losing this faith. A large portion of The Misfit’s expulsion of religion is due to the way he feels he was wrongly treated when regarding his conviction for murder. “I was never a bad boy that I remember of,” (18) and that authorities “said what I had done was kill my daddy but I known that for a lie” (18-19) The Misfit claims, yet he was punished regardless, indicating to him a sort of inconsistency with the Christian promise that morally good people do not suffer as he did in the way of his jailing. or cut last sentence and separate to be more concise) He acknowledges that praying would most likely grant him some sort of moral satisfaction or salvation from sin, yet claims “I don’t want no help” (19). This shows how he has lost touch with religion and no longer sees the benefit to having faith in Christianity as a result of the lack of help he received while enduring hard times in jail. The Misfit concludes his denunciation of Christianity by claiming that Jesus had “thrown everything off balance” (21) and made a mistake in raising the dead. The fact that a man would make the life’s work of Jesus out to be an issue in society proves a loss of faith in Christianity, a belief system founded on the idea that Jesus Christ saved society. The heart of The Misfit’s conflict with religion lies in the opinion that he, a morally sound and religiously faithful man, was wronged, punished, and left out to dry by the promises to save him from suffering made by the religion he once trusted. In this way, The Misfit has lost his faith in religion as a result of the emotionally and physically challenging times he endured throughout the process of his

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