Evil In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Evil can often be seen in plain sight, but it can just as easily be hidden. Religion, however, can almost never be hidden due to evangelization. The combination of the two is rarely seen unless religion is used as a cover for evil. The grandmother, a nontraditional antagonist, exemplifies the combination of religion and evil, but she only sees herself as religious when truly she is only evil. However, the misfit, a conventional antagonist, knows he is evil and embraces it. In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” Flannery O’Connor parallels nontraditional evil with conventional evil to illustrate that evil can be found in anyone, even your grandmother. O’Connor portrays the grandmother as clueless because she believes she represents
She is a woman of “pride, pettiness, and self-centeredness” ("A Good" par. 8). While the grandmother claims to be religious, all of the aforementioned qualities go against the teachings of the Catholic Church. Shakelford proclaims that “thematically, the story concerns religious hypocrisy” (par. 19). Later Shakelford claims that, “O'Connor's primary theme, from her earliest to last stories, is hubris" (par. 14). Thus “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a blend of the themes of religious hypocrisy and hubris. Nevertheless, it is the Grandmother's self-pride or hubris that keeps her from God and understanding her faith, therefore resulting in religious hypocrisy. Without a proper understanding of her porous actions, the grandmother is oblivious to her own hypocrisy. Stephen Bandy has argued, “the Grandmother prefers to see herself as a valiant defender of social decorum in a world of barbarians” (par. 23). In her eyes, she devout catholic with appropriate moral standards. She believes that she is of such status and ethics that she knows what it takes to be a good man. In the text, during the grandmother’s encounter with The Misfit, she declares, “I know you're a good man. You don't look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people!” (O’Connor 10). Not only is the grandmother nowhere near qualified to judge who is good, she is also manipulating the Misfit. In
Brandy agrees exclaiming, “The Misfit is simply a more completely evolved form of the Grandmother.” (par. 32). While the grandmother is evil she is often unaware that she is evil, unlike the Misfit. “The criminal is a brutal killer, but he has thought deeply about Christianity.” (“A Good” par. 11). It is ironic that even though the Misfit is a “brutal killer” that he has thought “deeply about Christianity”, something the grandmother has failed to do. Brandy says, “It seems that he has given Jesus a good deal of thought--far more than the Grandmother ever had done.” (par. 25). His thoughts about religion are most evident when he says, “Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead” (O’Connor 13). The grandmother follows with, “Maybe He didn’t raise the dead” (O’Connor 13). Anyone who claims to be religious knows for a fact that Jesus rose from the dead, yet the grandmother is questioning it proving that she is a