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A Good Man Is Hard To Find Foreshadowing

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The short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, written by Flannery O’Connor, depicts the story of a family – A mother and father, three kids, and a grandmother – as they travel to their vacation in Florida. On their way, they're met by an escaped convict and killed. O’Connor utilizes various writing tools to translate a message about life and the struggle of good, evil, and faith. O’Connor uses characterization, as well as foreshadowing and irony to translate her message. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is told in the third person, but our main character focus is on the grandmother. When she first appears in the story, at the beginning, you can immediately tell of her stubborn nature. Throughout the story, it is clear she is also deeply paranoid, self-righteous, and stuck in the past. O’Conner uses the grandmother’s personality to guide the story with much foreshadowing and irony. The grandmother immediately protests traveling to Florida, advocating to instead travel to Tennessee, where she would visit some old friends (O'Connor 1). This displays her stubbornness and unwillingness to move on from the past. She tries to discourage her family from going to Florida by telling them of a dangerous, escaped convict headed for Florida (O'Connor 1). This …show more content…

She encourages him to pray and insists that he is a good man and would not shoot a lady. He replies by telling her of his family and explaining how his current plight came to be. In the quote above, he gives some insight into his mind and his reasoning. He doesn’t deny Jesus’s existence or His actions, but nor does he state he believes it. He seems to be struggling with what he believes, as he seems to believe in Jesus but acts as though he does not. On the other hand, the grandmother says she has faith and is telling The Misfit to pray, yet does not show so in her actions. In this way, they both act contrarily to their beliefs, very

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