O’Connor purposely wanted readers to think this way to distracted what it’s actually meant to mean. If your one of the reader’s who fall into this trap then the story’s conclusion will leave you completely shocked. So what does O’Connor mean by a good man is hard to find? Several clues, if not carefully read, presents us with an idea of what the main character means by “good.” One would be when the grandmother and her family are at a small restaurant called Red Sammy’s. Her and the owner get to talking about how good men are hard to find. ”A good man is hard to find.....I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more.” Here, the owner says exactly what the reader believes the title to be, but when the grandmother speaks her interpretation of “good man” is different. The first clue is how she…
Throughout this story, the grandmother struggles to find what the definition of “good” is. The grandmother wears a hat to show others that she is a lady. However, this hat is also a symbol for her foolish ethical code. When the grandmother prepares for the car trip with the family, she dresses up in collars and cuffs to show she is a lady “In case of an accident” (12). The grandmother acts as if she is completely undisturbed with the fact that she would be dead in this situation and remains unconcerned that her son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren would have also possibly died. The grandmother, however, only cares about her appearance as a lady. This silly concern shows how self-centered she really is and how delicate her ethical conviction is. This symbol further develops when the family becomes, in fact, involved in a car accident. The grandmother’s hat falls apart, much like her ethical conviction, and after she continued to stare at it, she eventually “let it fall on the ground.”(96) Once she is thrown from the car and her family is face-to-face with the Misfit, the brim of the grandmother’s hat then falls off. Her appearance as a lady melts as the damaged hat falls.…
In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, a family plans a vacation to Florida, in which it does not turn out as they had expected. The story begins with a family from Georgia consisting of the father Bailey, his wife, baby, two kids John Wesley and June Star, and their grandmother whose name is never announced. Among planning their trip to Florida, the Grandmother suggest they go elsewhere, justifying herself saying that there is a misfit on the loose and he’s heading that direction. The rest of the family does not take her suggestion seriously, and so the next day they all leave for Florida, including the grandmother. The grandmother makes the decision to bring her cat along for the trip as well while not telling any of the other family. During the trip, the grandmother tells the children stories and plays games with…
In Flannery O'Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” neither The Misfit, nor the Grandmother seem to feel sympathetic. The Misfit goes around and kills innocent people for what seems like no reason while the grandmother causes the death of her entire family and seems to feel no remorse until her life is on the line. The grandmother spends a lot of the story trying to appeal to The Misfits sympathies so when he shoots her “three times through the chest” (O’Connor) this proves that he does not have sympathy. The grandmother indirectly caused the death of Bailey, the children’s mother, June Star, the baby, and John Wesley. After each death all she did was continue to talk to The Misfit, not show any remorse or sympathy for what she had caused.…
After finishing O’Connor’s story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” I found that the ending was very shocking but not troubling just because it was unexpected. I believe that this ending is troubling whether it was unexpected or expected. There were many foreshadows leading up to the tragic ending. For example, when O’ Connor writes “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.” (203) she foreshadows the car accident that later happens down the dirt road of Georgia. Another foreshadow in the very beginning of the story is when the grandmother see’s in the newspaper that the misfit has escaped in Florida and that they should not head that way, but everyone ignores her and they go anyway. On the way to Florida the family “... passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island.”(203) foreshadowing the death of the family. Some other foreshadowing in the story is when they end up at Red Sammy’s Barbeque where they again here about the misfit through Sammy, the owner. Grandmother and Sammy bond over the hatred towards violent citizens such as the misfit. We may also see the color “red” as a foreshadow of death because blood is red.…
“A good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O'Conner depicts a southern family, who is at odds about where they should go for a family vacation. They will eventually agree to head for Florida, once in the car the family will go through a series of events that will shapen each indivudal character. One of the main characters in the story, “The Grandmother”, who is known for her critical , savvy ways gives the audience her definition of what exactly it means to be a lady. The Grandmother and her family will be put to death by an escaped criminal by the name of the Misfit, who the grandmother warns the family of before there voyage to Florida. In the story one will see that although the Grandmother had not been a known convicted felon, like the Misfit, her way for thinking and immoral behavior was no different than that of the Misfit and that they were alike in many different ways. Although the Grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to find”, tries to portray herself has a good role model and a Christian lady one will later see as story evolve that she was a woman contrary of her word and was indeed the ultimate “misfit”.…
Near the end of the story, the reader wonders why each time Bobby Lee and Hiram takes someone into the forest, they never come back. Well at the end of the story the whole family is taken to die. June Star's comment that the grandmother goes everywhere the family goes can be read as a sign that she will meet the same fate as them. There's also another blatant foreshadowing in the story. The author describes that the grandmother is dressed very nice on the trip and the reason she gives is, "In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady." When a person dies, they usually are dressed in their best outfit, just like the grandmother was dressed in what seemed to be her Sunday best. This shows that there shouldn't be a shock if something fatal happens to her at the end. There's also one interesting foreshadowing image placed into the short story. While on the trip the family, "Passed by a cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island." It's pretty fascinating how the number of graves matches the exact number…
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?”…
One of the utmost unforgettable lines from “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” originates from the Misfit when he says, “She would have been a good woman if it had been someone there to shoot her for every minute of her life (O'Connor).” Flannery O’Connor’s illustration of Christianity can be seen in within this text. Certainly, the plot ends with an appalling conclusion, and this leaves the reader with liberty to understand the central idea of this story. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is largely influenced by divine authority and other elements within the story.…
In Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the gruesome ending comes as quite a shock. But, upon a second read, signs of an ominous end permeate the work. Hints of the family's tragic finale exist throughout the plot until the time of the first murder. The story contains pervasive images of death and to foreshadow the ultimate demise of the nameless family at the hands of the malicious Misfit and his henchmen.…
In the story, A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor is about a family whom wanted to go to a family vaction along with the grandmother. However, along the way, the family bumped into the "Misfit" and his friends. The "Misfit" is a crimina whom escape from prison along with two criminal escapees. One by one, every family member were sent to the woods to meet their deaths leaving the grandmother talking to the "Misfit" and pleading him to spare her life other than beg for her family's lives. In the end, it turned the family vacation to a murder. O'Connor used the literacy devices such as foreshadowing which gives a hint or a suggestion on a event that will most likely happen and irony which is between what actually happened and what is expected to happened. The author is trying to show her readers that everyone has their own values and opinions than others. She's having the readers understand what her views and…
In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the author, Flannery O’Connor communicates literary symbols and prominence of Southern culture. Within the story, there are subtle yet important details that make the entirety of the piece as iconic as it is. The reoccurring theme of being a lady and moral codes both are important to the overall concept of the story.…
The grandmother in the story is described as an idiosyncratic and demanding character. Those traits are the opposite of what people imagine a grandmother to be. A grandmother is someone who is caring, believes in family, and would do anything for her family. Bailey, the son of the grandmother, decides to take the family on a road trip to Florida bringing his wife, their three children, and of course the grandmother.The grandmother insists on not going due to the fact there is a person known as the Misfit, who is a criminal where she read in the paper he is headed to Florida. The grandmother tries to convince Bailey to reconsider the trip to Florida and to think of what is best for the…
The theme seems to attract people from all backgrounds and cultures, there is just something about the theme that hooks people. In Flannery O’Connor’s story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” there is a well-established theme of good versus evil. The grandmother that represents the good, sees the best in others and has innocent intentions, whereas The Misfit is the archetype character representing the evil, who seems to be anything by good. The way that O’Connor approaches the theme through the use of symbolism and rhetorical devices allow the readers to better grasp what she is trying to instill in her short…
“A good man is hard to find” is a narrative that Flannery O’Connor, a spiritual southern writer, uses to illustrate the simplicity of religion. O’Connor narrates how the fate of a family is doomed by the actions of their grandmother and their encounter with the misfit on a family vacation trip. O’ Connor with excellent diction and imagery tells this tragicomedy to a climax, that creates room for debates among her readers. O’ Connor uses her main grotesque characters (the grandmother and misfit) that are parallel in the ideas of life to demonstrate a relationship between grotesque and grace. This juxtaposition creates surrealism, suspense and humor as O’Connor uses excellent symbolism and allusion to reveal how her grotesque characters receive grace after dooming the existence of a family. O’Connor uses excellent symbolism and allusion to reveal how her grotesque characters receive grace after dooming the existence of a family.…