Character Analysis: A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Doris Daniels
Professor Magnani
ENC 1102.1713
4 February 2015
“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” In the fictional story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the author Flannery O’Connor uses good, evil, guilty and innocent characters to deliver her countless messages. The story takes place in Georgia in 1953 when the Grandmother and her family decides to take a road trip to Florida. However, before they get to their destination, the Grandmother gets her son Bailey to take a side dirt road to look at an old house with a secret panel. After they turn onto the dirt road, their car ends up rolling into a ditch. The family has an accident, and the Grandmother climbs out of the car and states that she has been injured. Then she makes her way to the side of
The Grandmother goes through a spiritual transformation while on a trip to Florida with her family when she meets the Misfit. The Misfit makes her realize that she is no better than anybody else, but he does it in a ruthless way. The Misfit shows the grandmother that she is imperfect spiritually and that she has been a hypocrite, and he will forever change her life. Ironically the Misfit is the reason the Grandmother did not want to go to Florida to begin with because she is afraid that they would end up his victims. Two of the men take the family out to the woods to kill them while the Misfit stays with the Grandmother. The grandmother tries to reason with him and talk him out of killing her, but it does not work. She tells him how he is a good man, and he is one of her babies. However, when she touches him, he jumps back and shoots her three times in her chest. The Grandmother has a moment of clarity before her death and realizes that she is no better than anyone else, and she is imperfect like everybody in the world. Therefore, the Grandmother revelation shows we are all God’s children in her moment of
During the beginning of the story, the Grandmother main focus was on herself in relation to how others thought of her as Christian. Ever since she met the Misfit, the Grandmother realizes that he represents an image of who she is. The Grandmother tries to convince the Misfit that he is a good man, and he comes from nice people. Also she pleads with him to pray to Jesus, but it seems more like a superstitious piety than a prayer. The Misfit refuses to make the leap of faith in Christ’s divinity and has consigned himself to no pleasure but meanness. After the Grandmother has been shot, she dies with a smile on her face staring at the heavens. At the cost of her life, her soul has been redeemed, and the Misfit has witnessed her Grace, firsthand. The Misfit recognizes that had she challenge the cost of her soul before her final encounter; she would have been a good