A Good Man Is Hard To Find Literary Analysis

Another virtue the grandmother lacks is courage. Courage is “The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger with self-possession, confidence and resolution” (Courage). When The Misfit arrives, the grandmother is nothing but a coward. She exhibits no self-possession, “Alone with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she had lost her voice” (O’ Connor 1116), displayed here when she can’t even speak. She also has no resolution to the situation but to give The Misfit her money, “‘I’ll give you all the money I’ve got!’” (O’ Connor

A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor challenges readers to look at life through a different lense and causes her audience to make connections to the modern world from the text. Throughout the entire story, O’Connor addresses issues that are still relevant to this day by thoroughly developing each character and using each character to bring up issues that are intriguing to the audience. A Good Man is Hard to Find is a story that challenges readers to make connections and think about the world through a different lense. These thought provoking qualities are the reasons why A Good Man is Hard to Find is a must read for readers of all ages.

Tragedies tend to happen throughout life, but things happen whether one is destined for it, or simply because, one looks for trouble. In 1953, Flannery O’Conner published the short story A Good Man is Hard to Find. O’Conner presents one with a shorty story of selfishness, and family issues within. In the story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, A Grandmother did not want to go to Florida, with her son Bailey, and his family which is, his wife, a newborn baby, John Wesley his eight-year-old son, and June Star the daughter. Bailey’s mother offers to go to East Tennessee, so she could see some old connections there. She then finds a way to persuade him, by telling him a story of a criminal whom calls himself “The Misfit”. The next day, Bailey decides he will take his mother to Tennessee, grandma puts her luggage in the van as well as her cat Patty Sing.

The story seems to imply how the modern man becomes spiritual when faced with evil. The grandmother seems to be unconcerned with the rest of her family: “‘I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady!’”(441). She thinks she is a “lady” she shouldn’t be shot. The grandmother is self-centered; she did not even beg for the life of anyone in her family but her own. She is always the first to criticize everyone but never looks at herself in a critical manner. The conflicts in this story highlight the character’s nature.

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a story which revolves around a family of six from Georgia going on a vacation in Florida. This takes place in the South around the 1940’s and has a distinct southern gothic style with characteristics of suspense and darkness, all while keeping that southern feel. This story focuses on the eldest of the family, the grandmother, and her moral codes on a “good man” and what a lady should act like. Throughout the story, the grandmother shows her hypocrisy, and in the end, her family suffers because of her. This story has a religious meaning to it, with the grandmother acting almost devil-like with her narcissistic thoughts and actions throughout the passage. The family, mainly the two older children and the grandmother, become increasingly less-likeable as the story progresses. The grandmother, however, is redeemed at the very end of the story, just before she is the final member of the family killed.

Although the grandmother is a window into an auspicious past, she also reflects author Flannery O 'Connor 's dark theme of moral decay through her actions and words. While trying to convince Bailey, her son, to take the family road trip to Tennessee, her home state, she argues that " '[Bailey and his wife should] take [the children] somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad [and that t]hey have never been to east Tennessee '" (O 'Connor 2). Her claim reveals that she is determined to get her way and put herself above others, no matter what, displaying her value of narcissism, due to her sole focus on herself. This behavior is similar to that of the children, in the sense that both characters are morally decayed to the point where they have a strong absence of limits and are narcissistic. Along the same lines, after the three men came to help the discombobulated family, " '[t]he grandmother shrieks[, and blurts that the man is The Misfit]" (O 'Connor 18). The grandmother displays her adoption of the apparent ‘no-limits’ mentality of society, the same mentality of the children, by blurting out sensitive information, that results in her and her family’s death. Along the same lines, as the grandmother recalls a plantation she knew as a youth, she uses Bailey 's strongest weakness to get her way - his children. She claims that " '[t]here [is] a secret panel in [the] house, ' ... '[and]

After reading Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” one is able to interpret a hidden theme that hides in plain sight. The author of the short story Flannery O’Connor writes about how a family is on their way to Florida and how are basically met with deadly misfortune. The one main message as the title itself claims, meaning that it is hard to find a genuine good human, regardless of outward appearances and behavior.

At the beginning of this story, the grandmother could talk her way through just about anything, so she thought. She thought that she could convince the Misfit that he was a good man and convince him to spare her family’s life. Maybe she felt a little responsible for getting her family into this situation. Even in the beginning she felt that this trip to Florida would not be a good one. Her vision of something going wrong was

They later see a car passing by slowly. The grandmother waves to get their attention. The car once again drives by even slower, watching them. Another ironic thing is that these three men were driving a hearse. A hearse is a symbol for death. One of the three men were the misfit, the other were younger accomplices. The grandmother somewhat feels she knows this man, but does not catch on immediately. She then realizes who they were with. She says, "You 're the Misfit!" she said. "I recognized you at once!". This makes Bailey so upset. Bailey says something that makes the grandmother come to tears. I believe he has so

Pride is the topic expressed in both “A Good Man is Hard to Find “by Flannery O’Connor and “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant. The grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and Mrs. Loisel in “The Necklace” are the main characters. They would not admit to themselves that they made a mistake and affected those loved ones in their life. Instead of admitting they have been wrong their pride caused both different consequences; however, their lives were ruined because of pride.

A Good Man is Hard to Find is one among O'Connor's regularly anthologized short stories, and it makes a brilliant outline of her capacity to blend odd funniness with genuine topical material. In this exposition I will break down this short story with distinctive angles including plot, theme, structure, attainment imperative and so forth.

The hardest thing to do in any type of short story is development, or, more specifically, theme development. Developing a good theme in a good short story is hard to do because it has to be short. However, O’Connor does a great job with developing similar themes in both “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Revelation”. The way O’Connor does this in both stories is by having a character that can sort of symbolize that theme for us. It’s way easier to develop a character than a theme, but if you have a character represent that theme, then it becomes a lot easier to not only write, but it is also easier for the readers to identify.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” began with a family of five and their grandmother getting ready to go on a vacation. At this point in the story I did not have any negative opinions on any of the characters, I only really liked the mother and the children. From the very beginning we see that the children do not like where they come, but love to travel and see things that are new and different. While their grandmother enjoyed the ride and the scenery no matter where she was. At this point in the story we really don’t know much about the mother and father. As the story progressed we continued to learn a lot about these family members, and throughout the entire story I felt positively about all these characters. One character that I did think negatively about, when we first met was Red Sammy Butts when we first met him I did not really like him but for the short time he was in the story I grew kind of fond of him.

As we take a glimpse at the grandma, take note that she is unnamed (Evans 184). There are only two main characters in this story; The Grandmother and the Misfit. The others were

As people grow they begin to believe that they understand more about how the world works. These individuals begin to criticize others because the way they were raised was just better. There are people that live in the past and believe that their generation was a better time. The world is a place full of judgment and sometimes these judgmental people view others as the bad man. They even question themselves if there are any good men left in this universe. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the audience is introduced to a grandmother in which one can see she is a bit judgmental. The readers can only view this story through the eyes of the grandmother and her thoughts. Flannery O’Connor makes use of a judgmental grandmother to demonstrate the darkness of human nature.