A Good Man Is Hard To Find Literary Analysis

For example, Bailey does not want her to carry the cat to their journey. However, grandmother does not listen to him and she hides the cat inside the car in a basket and thus secretly brings the cat along with her. On their way, she also wants to go and visit the old plantation even though Bailey does not agree to this. In order to see that she gets what she wants, she talks to the children and convinces them to tell Bailey to do as she wishes. The author writes “There was a secret panel in this house…. and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found . . .” (O’Connor 45). Grandmother says these words craftily in her attempts to convince Bailey to drive to the old plantations even though she knows that she is not telling the truth. Evidently, she leads the family into a dangerous tour drive. In this tour, the family ends up having an accident due to the Pitty Sing cat sneaking out of the car, leaping on Bailey who loses control of the car. She avoids responsibility by pretending to be hurt. Her actions put the family in dangerous situations.

The Grandma is prim and proper and self-acclaimed to be very ‘lady like’ yet is extremely crass in her mannerisms. From the very beginning of the story the grandmother begins to show her selfish ways. “…and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did." (O’Connor 1). Though the grandmother is not specific in her selfishness, it seems her indirectness is what gets her nowhere in her statements. As a result of this, neither her children nor her grandchildren do not show reverence for her. Without the parents respect for the Grandmother, there is no possibility for her to gain the grandchildren’s respect. Here again we have another character whose role was not the main role, but one who has a lesson to teach if the reader is willing to dig deep enough to find

These catastrophic events would not have happened if the grandmother was not being selfish in making Bailey turn around to go to the house and sneaking her cat in the car. As the story continues, the family comes in contact with the Misfit. They become very violent with the other members of the family. However, instead of trying to save the other family members, the grandmother is only worried about self-preservation. The grandmother from “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is undoubtedly responsible for the events that occurred on the trip because of her intentions, selfishness, and the spiraling of events caused by her.

O'Connor does the same thing here; the grandmother's first action was to convince her son, Bailey, into going were she wanted to go, a selfish act, not a trait that we see a grandmother having. Also she thought out a plan to get what she wanted by acting as if she cared about her family's safety. "Now looks here, Bailey........ see here, read this...Here this fellow that calls himself the Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed towards Florida and you read here what is says he did to these people(328)." The grandmother's relationship right away to the reader is one that can not be trusted. Throughout the story you now question the grandmother's intentions, are they honest or selfish.

Bailey and his wife are up in the front seats of the car, and since the grandmother is in the back with the two kids, where her sphere of socialization and influence are more prominent, the kids are learning her bad habits after all through imitation and desensitization. All the settings are revolving around the grandmother, the protagonist, and they are placing her on a road to hell, paved in her own narcissism and condescending behavior.

This is first seen as the grandmother constantly warns her family about a murderer named the misfit running rampant in Florida in hopes to derail their trip and go to where she wants. She states "wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that a loose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did. " This raises the possibility that Bailey, and his family might run into some trouble.

In both “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “A Rose for Emily,” the authors portray primary female leads which depict many typical and sometimes stereotypical, Southern ideals and values. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find, “the lead character, the Grandmother, epitomizes the stereotype of an elderly southern woman. O’Connor skillfully conveys the Grandmother’s superficiality by describing the over-the-top outfit she wears on the day of the trip, writing, “Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (406). The Grandmother assigns value to being a “lady” among all other virtues, placing the physical appearance of herself and others of the utmost importance. The grandmother is also nostalgic of the past, and constantly reminisces about the

Finally, when she realizes defeat, the grandmother is the first one all set to go the next morning, an indication of the dynamism and flexibility of her character. This same manipulative character is so important in the development of the plot that it will set fire and conflict of the story. The grandmother persuades her son Bailey to make a detour and let the family see an old house off road. When Bailey says no, she again uses her grandchildren by telling them lies about the secret panel in the house where the old family that used to stay in that house hid their silver. The grandmother knows she ignites the children’s imagination and senses winning this time. This sends the children to a frantic tantrum and ultimately changes Bailey’s mind. The detour causes them an accident and their encounter with The Misfit. In her encounter with The Misfit, still high with power over her ability to changer her son’s mind, she does the same tactic to The Misfit, and hopes not to get killed by persuading The Misfit to change his ways. She evangelizes on his morality and flatters him by constantly telling him he is a good man and that he comes from a nice people (364). Her desperation is overwhelming as she desperately tries to reach out with The Misfit by calling him “one of her children” and touching him on his shoulders. This desperate action brings her to her death in the

She was a lady through and through, so much that “In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.” The irony of that quote is simply that it becomes factual. Flannery O’Connor really paints a vivid picture of how self absorbed this character is. The grandmother’s personality might play a role in her self-proclaimed aristocrat outlook on society but the way that she was raised probably had a much greater impact on the way she view things as proper and right. Flannery O’Connor wrote A Good Man is Hard to Find in the 1946. From this, readers can assume that the grandmother would have grown up before the time of the booming 1920’s. After the 1920’s, many women’s outlook on what was proper and acceptable was drastically changed. The grandmother saw this drastic change in the morality of the American Society, which could have given her the idea that she was a more proper and sophisticated lady then the younger people who had completely different views on what was deemed expectable. She was surrounded with people that she was much older than her, which could have also given her the thought that she was among the hierarchy. This is because of the time period that she was brought up, she may have felt it necessary for her to teach other people the ways that to days younger people seemed to have lost. One could see the influence that her

She dresses up in a dress and hat so “in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O’Connor 138). Also, she insists on bringing her cat and wants to take a trip to her old house. She is so focused on herself and is a selfish woman at heart because her decisions ultimately place her family in danger. The detour places them in the presence of the Misfit, and the cat, that she insisted on bringing, “clings to [Bailey’s] neck like a caterpillar” which causes the crash (O’Connor 144). It is obvious that the grandmother is self centered.

She criticizes the children’s mother for not wandering to a place that would permit the children to be “wide-ranging,” and she compares the mother’s visage to a cabbage. Later on in the story, she proudly wears her cautiously selected dress and hat, being sure that being a lady is the main asset of all. The grandmother by no means, ever turns her critical eye on herself to examine her own dishonesty, selfishness, and hypocrisy. For example, the sense of right and wrong the grandmother invokes at the start of the short-story is handily quiet when she sneaks the cat into the car, lies to the kids about the secret panel, and decides not to admit that she made an error about the location of the house they were going to. When the Misfit methodically kills the family, the grandmother does not beg him to keep the children and grandchildren alive. She tries to drag him into her own world by assuring him that he’s a good man and yet agrees with her assessment of him, but doesn’t see this as a cause to keep her alive. This is a moment of awareness, one that is right away followed by her

Throughout the entire world, there is an idea of the social facade of how one should appear and no one is an exception to this. The south is particularly known for this and is seen throughout the various stories read in this class. One author who demonstrates this concept of social facade is Katherine Anne Porter in her story, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall. It is the story of a grandmother who is a hypocrite, not only to herself, but the whole town and obsessed with her appearance in how people view her and her family.These ideas can also be seen in Flannery O’Connor’s story A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Porter’s other story, The Old Order. The main theme seen in these stories is this idea of social facade and hypocrisy.

Only when the grandmother is facing death, in her final moments alone with the Misfit, does she understand where she has gone wrong in life. Instead of being superior, she realizes, she is flawed like everyone else. When she tells the Misfit that he is “one of [her] own children,” she is showing that she has found the ability to see others with compassion and understanding.

It is not until the family is faced with a criminal who calls himself "The Misfit" that the truth behind the grandmother really comes to the surface. The grandmother immediately recognizes him and ignorantly calls him out on his identity, which puts her family into more danger than before. Her son Bailey is so angry with his mother at this point that he "says something to his mother that shocked even the children" (Paragraph 85) and it becomes even more evident that the woman has been provocing angry feelings from her family for some time now. Even the children have made remarks towards the woman throughout the story, which is a devastating blow when even your own family has negative feelings towards you. Throughout all of the responses from her family, the grandmother still continues to act in her usual selfish ways. Once she is faced up against The Misfit, the grandmother begins trying to manipulate him just as she has done to her family. She tries to persuade him into trusting that she believes him to be a "good man at heart".(Paragraph 91) At this point the grandmother has always been able to manipulate those around her, but The Misfit proves to be not so

The family stops at a restaurant to get a bite to eat, and we find out that the two parents, Bailey and his wife, do not really care for the Grandmother. The Grandmother asks Bailey to dance, but he just declines and ignores her. Bailey’s wife does not seem to care either. They then continue on the road, and the Grandmother begins to tell the story of a house that she really enjoyed passing. She really wanted to go there, so she persuaded the children to want to go as well. After a long time of complaining, they finally convince their father to head back toward this house. They go down this road when all