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A Good Man Is Hard To Find Rhetorical Analysis

Decent Essays

Taking place during a family road trip to Florida, Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” illustrates how an individual's morals may change when they are put into a life-altering situation. The incorporation of imagery and tone proves vital as it depicts the characters and the environment as a metaphorical vehicle to help the reader understand how characters in the story develop their personalities and outlooks on life. With the use of allusions and symbolism, the reader becomes aware of how the grandmother and Misfit’s experiences with religion allow their morals to develop and dictate how an individual's life should be lived. O'Connor's incorporation of irony allows the reader to analyze the grandmother's actions and …show more content…

Near the beginning of the story, the grandmother heads toward the car with “a navy blue straw hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress” (O’Connor 501). The description of her outfit allows the reader to understand that she holds herself to a certain standard compared to the rest of her family. This same idea of holding oneself to a standard can also be found in Mitchell Owen’s article “The Function of Signature in ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’” stating that the grandmother is “very conscious throughout the story of what people are wearing, because to her it is through such things as clothing that one can externally reflect internal worth, even when worth is otherwise obscured by surrounding conditions” (Owens 102). When comparing the standards of Misfit to the grandmother, it becomes obvious that he the does not hold the same standards as her with “his hair just beginning to gray and [wearing] silver-rimmed spectacles that gave him a scholarly look. He [also] had on blue jeans that were too tight for him and was holding a black hat and gun” (O’Connor 507). The Misfit’s opposite choice in appearance in comparison to the grandmother helps establish how others view him, even though he does not care about how others view him. As the family’s road trip progressed, June Star, the daughter, noticed an African-American child standing on a house porch while seated in the back row. Questioning why the boy was wearing no “britches”, the grandmother explains to her that “little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do” (O’Connor 503). This racist statement and mockery towards the child’s impoverishment shows the reader that she too is not as well mannered as she perceives herself to be, proving that she does not uphold her moral standards. In Alex Link’s article “Means, Meaning, and Mediated Space in ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’” he shares the same view

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