A Good Man Is Hard To Find Figurative Language Analysis

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” tells a twisted story of a typical family going about a road trip embedded with ethical pit stops along the way. The story revolves around a cynical grandmother and how her unconventional attitude and habits set the stage for an interesting turn of events. Through manipulative antics, a prejudice character and an ironic story line, author Flannery O’Conner creates a captivating tale that shines a lights on readers’ own moral codes. The author does this by making an example of a woman completely unaware of her own immoral acts.

Authors have different ways to convey the emotions from their work to the reader. Diction and sentence structure is one of the many components authors use to create the tone of the story, also known as the author’s attitude towards the subject. But with the use of figurative language it helps express the meaning of a line without using its literal definition. Homer, the author of The Odyssey, used figurative language to express the tone by using personification and similes to help the reader picture and sense his words.

In the short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the misfit has the stronger beliefs as he never waivers from his belief no matter what the grandmother says. His actions in the story support what he says, to the contrary, the grandmother is saying the right words, but shows no true actions that she really believes what she is saying. The grandmother keeps telling him to pray, but he sees no point in it as his beliefs are that he doing just fine without him as he tells her “’I don't want no hep," he said."I'm doing all right by myself.’” (A Good Man is Hard to Find, pp. A-97). The grandmother tells the misfit to pray for himself but she never once prays for herself. This is a contradiction in her stated belief, if she truly believed it would help him with his problems, then she should be praying for herself and her problem that she is facing right then.

James E. Faust once said, “In this life, we have to make many choices. Some are very important choices. Some are not. Many of our choices are between good and evil. The choices we make, however, determine to a large extent our happiness or our unhappiness, because we have to live with the consequences of our choices.” In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor discussed the difference between good and evil within the characters of the short story. The Misfit has his henchmen kill the family, and the grandmother ultimately only thinks of herself and not the rest of her family. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O'Connor shows the readers multiple meaning of symbolism throughout the characters relations to faith, places, and outlook on their surroundings.

Exploring the idea that all men are born sinners, O’Connor demonstrates immoral indulgences entertained by various characters. Readers are introduced to grandmother, an elderly woman whose consistent unscrupulous behavior exhibits her inner motives. Grandmother uses subtle, indirect confrontation to get her way until she is faced with The Misfit, a runaway criminal who believes that crime is a justifiable. In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” Flannery O’Connor uses characterization to display a loss of morals, imagery to portray evil in society, and symbolism to emphasize the struggle of obtaining grace to prove how life is nihilistic without religion.

In the story A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Conner we follow a family as they road trip to Florida. This story is meet with a tragic ending when the family is murdered in cold blood by the misfit on dirt road off the beaten trail. The grandmother essentialy sealed the families fate when she discovered that the man was the Misfit but interesting conversation was struck between the misfit and the grandmother. The grandmother was constantly bringing up the presence of god and at one point and even attempted to touch him. In that situation it seemed that even Jesus himself could not help the old women out. While talking so much about Jesus she was realizing that her attempts were not successful. The conversation between the two was about

In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the author, Flannery O’Connor uses ingenious foreshadowing, characterization, and her southern religious personality to depict the mysterious ways that God is the ultimate controller of human beings.

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find’ tells of a seemingly normal family with a bit of dysfunction. Throughout this tale, the author fabricates a number of characters, some inconsiderable, others full of depth and history that present themselves wildly open to interpretation. Looking into O’Connor’s past, it is clear to see her relationship with a number of these fictional minds and pull from these the meaning behind her hidden pain and anguish. We are therefore presented with a mother and sons family who are prisoners in a manipulative, destructive relationship.

The short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” does not tend to have a lot of characters with society and class. It is mainly The Grandmother who has a higher social class than the rest of the characters. The Grandmother’s actions, comments, and descriptions of her character says it all. The family lives in Atlanta, Georgia around the mid-century,(around the late 40’s or early 50’s, based on when this short story was published,) when WWII ended. One of the main characters of the story, the theme of the class structure is displayed throughout the symbols of The Grandmother’s hat, The Misfit’s car, and The Grandmother’s death.

In the story, A Good Man Is Hard to Find from Flannery O’Connor tell a story with varies characters: The Grandmother, The Misfit, Bailey, John Wesley, June Star, Red Sammy Butts, Bobby Lee, and Hiram. The story seems to be told in a gothic genre that includes most of the times include insanity or murder stories. O’Connor seems to be describing his life and the concept of what really makes a “good” person has been the subject throughout the story. However, in the case of O’Connor’s the main character, the grandma somehow struggles knowing the qualities of a good person from other people and herself. And O’Connor also uses flashback to explore what they mean by being a good person. However, the only person that appears to be a good person in the person the grandma becomes through the struggles she has with the Misfit. Overall, O’Connor he seems to be the only thing in the conflict is the “good” can be found. He also explains no matter how nice you might be, when you find evil people there's no way to run away from death.

In A Good Man is Hard to Find The grandmother is most excited about the family trip, even if she didn’t want to go to the destination. The family is going to Florida. She would rather visit her “connections” in East Tennessee. She tried her hardest to change Bailey’s , her son, mind about where to go and brings up a violent criminal she read about in the newspaper. He is often referred to as “The Misfit”. Bailey ignored her story and off to Florida they went. John Wesley and June Star , the grandkids, were very rude to the grandmother. They always shunned her for family events and wasn’t fond of her. When the family left, "the grandmother was the first one in the car, ready to go. As the family leaves Atlanta, the grandmother sits between her two grandchildren. She tracks the mileage and

The author uses excellent imagery throughout the story allowing the reader to comprehend and paint a picture in their head more clearly. But another essential figurative device she uses is a metaphor. The author states that she

An item that has a deeper meaning to it sometimes it can be something small but can take it to the next level and give it a meaning. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” they are on the road and grandmother woke up remembering an old house she visited when she was young. Since she knew Bailey wouldn't want to go look at an old house, she lyed by saying “all the family silver was hidden in it… but it was never found (448)” Her lying to her son just to take her to a place she hasn't been in years must be awful but as the reader can see she is doing anything to visit the place. The house is a symbol of the past because to the grandmother it brings back memories of her childhood. In “Everything that Rises Must Converge” Julian and his mother were on

In the figurative language we have different figures of speech. A figure of speech is a word or phrase that has different meaning than the actual meaning is a way writers used to exaggerate feelings and emotions. There are several figures of speech such as a hyperbole, personification, metaphor, simile and onomatopoeia. Each of these figures of speech all have different functions they play in the world of writing. Figures of speech are not used to exaggerate language, but to also cause a moment of excitement and intensity when reading. The majority of these figures of speech provide the writing with a more concise and clarifications of what the author, singer, writer or poet is trying to share with their particular audience.

Flannery O’Connor said in her short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (1953): “in my own stories I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace. Their heads are so hard that almost nothing else will do the work” (A Good Man Is Hard to Find). Flannery O’Connor’s story of the “Enduring Chill” (1958) is a perfect demonstration of O’Connor’s use of the dark and grotesque in order to bring out the grace that is offered to her characters. O’Connor’s natural delivery of the theme of grace is complimented by her ability to weave in symbolism in the most subtle of ways. She does this with the protagonist Asbury Fox, whose relentless pursuit of belonging in the world is blinding him to the one thing that would make him feel complete. The best example of the grace presented by O’Connor is through the stain on Asbury’s ceiling in the shape of a bird.