A Good Man Is Hard To Find By Flannery O Connor

A family endeavor changes into a road of discovery and grace in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. This southern gothic gives a tragic look at self-discovery. The story allows us to focus on the negative aspects of characters. As the plot rises the reader discovers grace behind the worst of faces. This ordinary road trip and talk of an estranged criminal turns deadly as the story unravels. A focus on characters, especially the grandmother gives a theme of grace and self-discovery. Once faced with the misfit and possible death she changes from unreligious to religious trying to bid her survival. And in turn has an insight of herself and the misfit. The theme of self-discovery is shown with the grandmothers change. She isn’t as bad as she may seem, just like the misfit who she at first despises then later relates with.
The grandmother frequently passed judgement on to others throughout the story, especially towards the misfit. She judges the lack of goodness in the world and says racist comments but believes she is a “lady”. During the story the grandmother was dishonest to her family about the secret panel and does not tell them how she mistook the location ultimately leading them to their death. When the grandmother’s family is taken away to be murdered she doesn’t beg him to spare them but pleads for her own life. The grandmother repeated, “You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?” but never the same for her family that were taken away followed by gun shots. In these moments she turns from unreligious and judgmental to a lady of the church and open minded to the misfit’s character. These events changed the grandmother. She became a whole new