The Mother in A Good Man is Hard to Find
Thesis: The children's mother is a lonesome young woman with out love and affection from her closest family, and the only one who talks to her with respect is the Misfit.
I. Critics have agreed mostly when they have tried to analyze the grandmother and the Misfit.
A. Stephen C. Bandy and Kathleen G. Ochshorn try in separate occasions to analyze the final scene between the grandmother and the Misfit.
B. Michell Owens shows how the grandmother has dealt with her changing social order.
C. Gary Sloan analyzes the Misfit behavior.
D. C. R. Kropf tries to analyze the grandmother and the Misfit.
II. Critics disagree in very few cases, except where Flannery O'Connor got her influence when writing the story, and which animals the characters look and behave like.
A. Work by other authors compared to "A Good Man is Hard to Find."
1. Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet show the influence from Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales."
2. Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet show that "A Good Man is Hard to Find," is to be found in Yeats's poems.
3. William J. Scheick compares similarities between "A Good Man is Hard to Find," and G.K. Chesterton's "Manalive."
4. Doyle W. Walls shows the connections between Matthew 25:31-43 and the grandmothers remark to the little black boy.
B. Characters in Flannery O'Connor "A Good Man is Hard to Find," are often compared to animals and their behavior.
1. Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet compare the setting and characters to a jungle.
2. Terry Thompson analyzes the Misfit as an doodlebug.
C. Hallman B. Bryant tries to shed light on some small...
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...or's : A Good Man is Hard to Find." Studies in American Fiction. 10 (2): 227-232. Autumn, 1982.
Ochshorn, Kathleen G. "A Cloak of Grace: Contradictions in A Good Man is Hard to Find." Studies in American Fiction. 18 (1): 113-117. Spring, 1990.
Owens, Mitchell. "The Function of Signature in: A Good Man is Hard to Find." Studies in Short Fiction. 33 (1): 101-106. Winter, 1990.
Scheick, William J. "Flannery O'Connor 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' and G. K. Chesterston's 'Manalive'." Studies in American Fiction. 11(2): 241-245.
Autumn 1983.
Sloan, Gary. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Expilicator. 57(2):118-120. Winter, 1999.
Thompson, Terry. "Doodlebug, Doodlebug: The Misfit in 'A Good Man is Hard to Find'." Notes on Contemporary Literature. 17(4):8-9. Sept., 1997.
Walls, Doyle W. "A Good Man is Hard To Find." Explicator. 46(2):46-45. Winter, 1988.
Literary Analysis of “A Good Man is Hard to Find”- Worry about yourself instead of others!!!
Bloom, H. (1999). Plot Summary of “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. Bloom’s Major Short Story
A brilliant storyteller during the mid-twentieth century, Flannery O'Connor wrote intriguing tales of morality, ethics and religion. A Southern writer, she wrote in the Southern Gothic style, cataloging thirty-two short stories; the most well known being “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”
Douglas, Ellen. "O'Connor's 'A Good Man is Hard to Find.'" Contemporary Literature Criticism. Eds. Carolyn Riley and Phyllis Carmel Mendelson. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1976. Vol. 6. 381.
Flannery O’Connor is a master of the ironic, the twisted, and the real. Life is filled with tragic irony, and she perfectly orchestrates situations which demonstrate this to the fullest extent. A Good Man is Hard to Find is an excellent example of the mangled viewpoint which makes her work as compelling and striking as it is.
O'Connor, Flannery, "A Good Man is Hard to Find", The Norton Introduction to Literature. Portable Tenth Edition, Booth, Alison, and Mays, Kelly J., New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2011.
Bandy, Stephen C. "One of my babies": The Misfit and the Grandmother in Flannery O'Connor's short story 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find'. Studies in Short Fiction; Winter 1996, v33, n1, p107(11)
O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael
As I read Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, I find myself being completely consumed by the rich tale that the author weaves; a tragic and ironic tale that concisely and precisely utilizes irony and foreshadowing with expert skill. As the story progresses, it is readily apparent that the story will end in a tragic and predictable state due to the devices which O’Connor expertly employs and thusly, I find that I cannot stop reading it; the plot grows thicker with every sentence and by doing so, the characters within the story are infinitely real in my mind’s eye. As I consider these factors, the story focuses on two main characters; that of the grandmother, who comes across as self-centered and self-serving and The Misfit, a man, who quite ingeniously, also appears to be self-centered and self-serving. It is the story behind the grandmother, however, that evidence appears to demonstrate the extreme differences between her superficial self and the true character of her persona; as the story unfolds, and proof of my thought process becomes apparently clear.
“A Good man is hard to find,” is about a family who decide to go on a trip to Florida. The story revolves around a self absorbed grandmother who loves to talk about how everything used to be back in her day and takes the time to dress herself so that “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady (358).” She sneaks the family cat with her despite her son’s disapproval of bringing the creature along violating her boundaries to how a lady would act. The family encounters an accident along the way and happens to come across ‘The Misfit,’ a runaway criminal. Using ‘The Misfit’ as a tool, O’ Connor sends a message to her readers of how hypocritical a person can be when it comes to belief.
O?Connor, Flannery. ?A Good Man is Hard to Find.? Literature: An introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 8th ed. New York: Longman, 2002.
O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." The Story and Its Writer An Introduction to Short Fiction. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin's, 2011. 1042-053. Print.
---. "On 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find." Rpt. in Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. 4th ed. Ed. Robert DiYanni. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998. 175-76
Flannery O’ Connor’s story: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is the tale of a vacation gone wrong. The tone of this story is set to be one irony. The story is filled with grotesque but meaningful irony. I this analysis I will guide you through the clues provided by the author, which in the end climax to the following lesson: “A Good Man” is not shown good by outward appearance, language, thinking, but by a life full of “good” actions.
...sque, and in Flannery O’Connor’s artistic makeup there is not the slightest trace of sentimentally” (qtd. in Bloom 19). Flannery O’Connor’s style of writing challenges the reader to examine her work and grasp the meaning of her usage of symbols and imagery. Edward Kessler wrote about Flannery O’Connor’s writing style stating that “O’Connor’s writing does not represent the physical world but serves as her means of apprehending and understanding a power activating that world” (55). In order to fully understand her work one must research O’Connor and her background to be able to recognize her allegories throughout her stories. Her usage of religious symbols can best be studied by looking into her religious Catholic upbringing. Formalist criticism exists in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” through Flannery O’Connor’s use of plot, characterization, setting, and symbolism.